When is Google updating Google Maps?

Does Google buy data from other companies to add to Google Maps and other Google product?

• Someone asked how Google Map collects business address, and there is one answer to that question. But the answer does not convince me. Mainly I am not convinced that small businesses contribute their locations to Google map. Because in other parts of the world, i.e. China, Google Map also pinpoints some businesses and organizations(not as many as those in the US), and I am certain that the pinpointed Chinese businesses did not supply their data to Google. Since Google is a data company, it is imaginable that Google Map has some algorithm to collect business information systematically and actively. But how do a piece of program do that!? Is the algorithm based on image, or gets data from some pre-existing address databases, or both? If Google gets the data from some pre-existing databases, what's the source of the databases? I know some companies like InfoUSA which sells data of small businesses. But InfoUSA is a much inferior data company to Google. Would Google buy data from its inferior counterpart?

• Answer:

  Technically Google licenses the data, they don't buy it.  Google just wants the right to use it, and they do pay for that right. The third party still owns the data and is responsible for maintaining it and updating it.