Browser Extension Restores 'Gulf of Mexico' in Google Maps

It's been a tumultuous week for the Gulf of Mexico.

After the U.S.'s Executive Order last month to rename the body of water to the 'Gulf of America', there has been a flurry of recent developments related to the name; from the declaration of Gulf of America Day, to Google and Apple updating their maps applications, to Mexico threatening to sue, to the AP being barred from the White House over not using the new name.

Now the waters are being muddied even further thanks to Restore the Gulf of Mexico, a browser extension that updates Google Maps to continue showing the Gulf's internationally-recognized name.

The open-source extension is small and straightforward — the video by developer Bryce Bostwick showing the creation process reveals it’s only a handful of lines of code — and it doesn’t address any functional gaps on the site.

But it does successfully accomplish its main goal — to offer a small yet symbolic way for everyday users to take their own stance on the name change. From the extension's website:

There are a lot of scary executive orders being issued right now. This is not one of the most important ones. But it might be the easiest to defy.