MapQuest has announced that it will not rename "Ontario Lake" on its map to "US Lake" despite President Trump's executive order requiring the US Department of Homeland Security to update the lake name in the US geographical naming service.
As a result, the number of downloads of MapQuest's mobile application skyrocketed, bringing the iOS application to 4th place on the US App Store's top application rankings (excluding games).
MapQuest also reached 8th place overall on the US App Store in both apps and games, and became the number 1 navigation application in the United States.
As of Sunday evening (local time), this application has reached 2nd place overall on the Canadian App Store.
MapQuest said they have received "hundreds of thousands" of new downloads since deciding to keep the name "Lake Ontario", and witnessed the number of application users increase 50 times compared to normal levels.
Data from third parties, specifically from market information provider Sensor Tower, confirmed this strong growth, showing that MapQuest recorded 184,000 global app downloads and 162,000 downloads in the US in the week starting from August 24, each number increasing more than 10 times compared to the previous week. In the US, the number of daily downloads increased by 128% compared to the previous day, from August 26 to 30.
“We have adopted a similar approach to the Gulf of Mexico: engaging in dialogue and providing people with an application that retains its familiar names. Hundreds of thousands of people told us this weekend that we did the right thing by downloading our application,” said Doug Berger, CEO of MapQuest.
MapQuest has also released an online tool that allows users to humorously rename Lake Ontario to any name they want, and then share the results on social media. The company provided a similar tool last year, after President Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Previously, Google Maps announced that they complied with Trump's decision, explaining that they updated Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources. In the US, it is the Geographic Name Information System (GNIS). The updated map will only be displayed to US users, while those in Canada will see "Lake Ontario", and those outside these two countries will see both names.
Both Apple Maps and Google Maps renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America last year, after Mr. Trump issued a similar executive order on renaming.
MapQuest has changed owners many times over the years, having been acquired by AOL shortly after the public listing. It then belonged to Verizon for a period of time, due to Verizon's acquisition of AOL. In 2019, Verizon sold MapQuest to online advertising company System1.
According to Sensor Tower estimates, the MapQuest application has been downloaded 687,000 times worldwide as of this time this year, an increase of 29% compared to the same period last year. Since 2012, MapQuest has been downloaded 24.4 million times, of which 97% of installations came from the US.
