> Google, and other companies are welcome to use OpenStreetMap Data as long as they meet their obligations in the OpenStreetMap License.
But they do not make wide use of OSM data, because one of the terms of the license is attribution, of which there is none on any Google product I have seen.
I would guess they are big supporters of OSM as a hiring thing - by supporting an opensource project, you will get young engineers interested in mapping, some of which will then go work on Google Maps.
It also helps any antitrust cases if Google isn't the only game in town, which was the case for many years.
But they do not make wide use of OSM data, because one of the terms of the license is attribution, of which there is none on any Google product I have seen.
I would guess they are big supporters of OSM as a hiring thing - by supporting an opensource project, you will get young engineers interested in mapping, some of which will then go work on Google Maps.
It also helps any antitrust cases if Google isn't the only game in town, which was the case for many years.