It's not just Google (though automation, through skimping on the hard-to-automate activity of effective verification, has clearly accelerated it.) Mapmakers ins

It's not just Google (though automation, through skimping on the hard-to-automate activity of effective verification, has clearly accelerated it.) Mapmakers insert small errors into their maps as a sort of watermark. In one case, a made-up place name was added to a map of the Adirondacks region of New York. When it appeared later on a rival's map, it turned out that the name had been adopted when a guy built a house nearby, because it was on the first map.