As leaders on both sides of the border reacted over recent days to Google Maps changing the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” aligning with U.S. President Donald Trump’s push, MapQuest made a social media post that quickly drew praise and has seen the app’s downloads surge.
“We’re not changing it,” the company said over a screenshot of the lake on their map platform on Thursday.
MapQuest, which is also an American company, took the marketing campaign further on Sunday, saying, “We are aware that Lake Ontario is being correctly labeled on our map.”
We’re not changing it. pic.twitter.com/NdeE9v2BNO
The app, which many users likely haven’t thought of in years, quickly became the number three most downloaded app among all free apps on Monday, right behind ChatGPT and Meta AI, and saw its Google Trends search traffic up 5,000 per cent compared to the same period last year, with searches up 500 per cent compared to last week in Canada.
Worldwide, searches for the app are up 50 per cent compared to last week and 40 per cent compared to the same period last year.
While the U.S. is the biggest market for MapQuest, Canadians also make up “a very big chunk” of their customer base and the decision to stand by the name has resonated with them, MapQuest CEO Doug Berger said.
“Hundreds of thousands of people have picked up the app and downloaded it. Obviously, people agree with us and we struck a chord,” Berger said.
But while switching from Google Maps to MapQuest takes only a few clicks on your smartphone, switching other digital technology services can be trickier — and often, there aren’t many alternatives to the U.S. tech giants, let alone Canadian options amid the growing Buy Canadian push, experts say.
“There’s a lot of areas, because of how dependent we are on American firms, where they can throttle our access to essential services,” said Emily Osborne, policy researcher at the Canadian Shield Institute, a think tank launched last year and focusing on digital sovereignty and national security.
The institute includes former Blackberry co-CEO Jim Balsillie on its board of directors.
“Cloud infrastructure stands out as an example of this, and you see people concerned about the potential of a kill switch for cloud infrastructure or other essential infrastructure services,” she added.
Making the switch from American tech is easier said than done for most Canadians, Rotman School of Management marketing professor David Soberman said.
“Almost all the dominant companies are American or American owned,” he said.
It can be easier to make the change in some cases compared to others, Soberman said. For example, some Canadians may choose to order from Canadian platforms like SkipTheDishes instead of UberEats, or buy retail goods on Canadian Tire instead of Amazon or Walmart.
