Google Earth,
A few points for your consideration:
1) Iranians about the earth have sent you petitions, letters, straightforward requests including an authoritative petition for a clarification of the decision from the National Iranian American Council.
Your decision to article an indirect reply on this obscure blog alternatively of immediately engaging and explaining your decision in a expert and community manner does a disservice to your well-earned affirmative reputation.
2) Your use of a "local use" rule, equal if lawful would necessitate several form of data assistance it up. Is the measure connected to population? what "local use" threshold are you holding yourself to? (33%? 5%? or is a fistful of 'locals' enough?)
Are you considering bordering shoreline? Is the GDP of the populated countries part of the measurement? Are you conducting polls? How frequently do you update your "local use" norm - or formerly decided, is the use afterward fixed for eternity?
What is your metric? and anywhere is the evidence to rear it up? In the case of the Persian Gulf which is the biggest matter currently being discussed concerning Google Earth (Aside from the Israeli/Palestinian town name - not a build of water, but additionally goes unaddressed in this blog post) - you neglect to acknowledge that the name Persian Gulf was archetypal coined (local use) by the Arabic tribes to depict the gulf they would have to cross to get to the "Persians".
3) This decision additionally strikes me as fairly feeble and slightly cowardly as it indicates a willingness by Google to accede to synthetic governmental force fairly afterward to accomplish Google's goal of providing exact data for it's consumers.
Your flippant use of the hypothetical renaming of the Pacific Ocean by a random monarch strikes me as a ideal example of this feeble argument. It is a seriously disguised difference to Gamal-Abdul Nasser's pan-Arabist governmental ideology that guide to the innovation of the term "Arabian Gulf".
Which brings up another inquiry - if a tyrant forces the use of a particular term by his group (lets say under penalty of death) - would that population's use afterward meet requirements under your 'local use' standard? Is this not afterward an encouragement for Tyrants to depart a enduring bequest by manipulating Google Earth's arbitrary policy?
If Google Earth had existed fair 40 years ago, perchance we would have had specified lofty bodies of h2o as the Pol Pot River, Idi Amin Lake, and the Northern Stalin Sea. Maybe equal the Red Mao Ocean (1.3 milliard Chinese following all).
In my individual estimation, according to the April 8th date of this article (months following authoritative requests for an explanation), this clarification reflects a poorly thought-out and ill-conceived excuse after-the-fact to clear the matter under the (Persian) rug and to provision Google executives alongside a face-saving PR talking-point.
I doubtful this attempt volition be a far-cry abbreviated of what is needed to silence your critics.
