Simon, I pretty regularly see stuff I’ve personally added to OSM mysteriously crop up on Google Maps. I presume they simply data-mined it off the web. (Why wouldn’t they, it’s free 
)
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Their “free” app was definitely OSM based - and the DWG has in the past had complaints about “data missing from OSM” which turned out to be data that was in OSM but omitted** by the OS’ US-based contractor 
** for those unaware, access rights in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are pretty complicated and what is “normal” in “normal” places is not normal here…
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I like this point, and want to add onto it with an experience in my life that pushed me to start contributing to OSM.
There was a new bubble tea shop in town opening right next to my place. (present me reporting: this has been a nightmare on my wallet)
Now this place had barely any details on it on Google Maps, which was expected of a new local small business, they have a lot going on as-is. But what shocked me more than that was the fact that Google was missing an entire road leading into the cafe. Not like a drive way or something small, just an entire navigable road segment that wasn’t on the map.
My thought was “well this sucks for this business owner. Her customers will think they can’t get to her store!” So I submitted feedback to Google explaining what the road is called, where it goes to and from, and even took pictures of it with my position on Google maps.
I wait a few days and get a reply back that amounted to “nah, don’t think so. Not gonna explain why.” To be clear, this was Google saying that a road that objectively exists and objectively could be used shouldn’t be on the map. I was stunned. But when my partner (who is a high level Google reviewer cuz he reviews basically every restaurant he steps foot in) reported the road being missing, it was corrected the next day (not an exaggeration).
Whereas when I contribute to OSM, I do not recall running into a situation where someone arbitrarily went “nah.” When there have been disputes about a contribution, it was based on the nature of the contribution itself or ground truth. Even when I was new, the value of my contributions were not questioned based solely on me being new.
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Well, maybe the license should say they have to pay us.
The software equivalent for that might be source first or fair code.
+1 for evidence for both of those.
If it’s true we should do something about it.
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Well I don’t really know what you would consider ‘evidence’…?
I can see the end result happening with my own eyes.
Obviously that doesn’t tell us what mechanism they’re using to do it.
But wouldn’t the simplest thing just be to ask them?
OS Maps app and web enquiries | Contact us | OS
When I go on the so-called ‘OS Maps’ Adndroid app, there’s a tiny smallprint ‘Attributions’ bit, and it has (c) Mapbox, (c) OpenStreetMap and ‘Contains OS data (c) Crown copyright and database rights 2025’ (and if you click on each one you get more blurb about it.
The OS has a commercial arm. The commercial arm uses OSM data in it’s app. It attributes this. If you believe that the non commercial part of OS is using OSM to update their “authorative” maps (e.g. MasterMap) then please do share.
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So, they are giving attribution. What’s the problem exactly?
Well, so they make money by exploiting our inferior free stuff?
Passing it off as they own with an attribution about 2 pixels tall.
Whatevers
Like I said earlier, I think if we want more we should demand it in the license.
EDIT: I didn’t realise at first that you were responding to RobJN. Nvm.
The ODbL does not specify that the attribution should be any bigger than the pixels you need to spell “OpenStreetMap” and “ODbL”. Honestly I’m flattered that lots of big organisations are sharing the results of our free labour with their own users.
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I don’t remember exactly when, but my edits were used to correct things in G Maps data. I’m not saying that they as a corporation did it, but sure that some G user did it, no doubt with that, some changes in their data, IMO, clearly correlated with my edits, maybe they didn’t use the exact geometries or data, but sure they were used as a feed, so for years now i add a only generic changeset comment, and at least make them analyze which features and why i had changed them. And not only G, also another free (as beer) maps provider.
Is not only about attribution. You are free to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt our data, as long as you credit OpenStreetMap and its contributors. If you alter or build upon our data, you may distribute the result only under the same license.
It they alter or build upon OSM data, they should distribute the dataset under the same license.
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Feelings and hearsay are not evidence, and using OSM data on the terms of our licence is not stealing.
Anybody wanting to change a non-open licence, is going to face the, in practical terms insurmountable, hurdle of having to change the contributor terms.
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Users noticing it was copied to Google:
There were also discussions on the OSM Poland’s Discord server.
So if I am following this correctly (and to save everyone else trying to work it out), is this the sequence?
- That street had the false name “3 Sierpnia 2018” in OSM for a period in 2018-2019-2020
- that name made its way into Google’s data
- in OSM it was replaced with a different false name in 2020, and later with a real name
- none of those changes from 2020 to 2025 have been reflected in Google.
While this is amusing, it is 7 years too late and wasn’t reported at the time (it would have crossed my desk). That would have enabled us and google to get to the bottom of it and yes after verification we would have reported it to google and google would have removed it and whoever added it. Just as the expectation is that google and OSM will do the same thing the other way around. Nobody in this discussion would consider a contributor copying data from google maps as OpenStreetMap stealing data from google as a policy, it is simply misguided contributors and that is why we have mechanisms to deal with it .
2018 is about a year after the end of google mapmaker, so that wasn’t the source, but there are other ways that it could have been “suggested” as the name.
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They have. I just looked and an old name is still here https://maps.app.goo.gl/AcKLqyiqXeGwhgXUA?g_st=ac
I suppose woodpeck might’ve looked into this syntex blocked by woodpeck | OpenStreetMap
Hey, someone could make a similar experiment again to see if they are still copying data to this day. 
If I find an anomaly in the future maybe I’ll send it here.
That was @alan_gr point, the following changes to OSM stopped in 2018.
Even that was at least 3 years after the last change made its way in to gmaps.
So to save at worst a handful of $, literally small change in their context, google would risk millions to billions?