I don't believe this is google just because of all the manual labor involved. Google would scrape the whole site and call people with pre-recorded messages or something.
for what it's worth, after i moved, google maps still showed that my old address was where my business was located. i filled out a short form saying it was not accurate any longer. there was no other contact information on the form, so i could have been anyone telling google a business had moved.
about a week later i received a call at my business number from an indian-sounding man asking if my company was no longer at my previous address. i could barely understand him, but he didn't say he was with google and once i confirmed that my business had moved, he hung up. shortly after that, my company was taken off of google maps.
so google is using manual labor, and they had to have done at least enough research to get my business phone number.
for what it's worth, after i moved, google maps still showed that my old address was where my business was located. i filled out a short form saying it was not accurate any longer. there was no other contact information on the form, so i could have been anyone telling google a business had moved.
about a week later i received a call at my business number from an indian-sounding man asking if my company was no longer at my previous address. i could barely understand him, but he didn't say he was with google and once i confirmed that my business had moved, he hung up. shortly after that, my company was taken off of google maps.
so google is using manual labor, and they had to have done at least enough research to get my business phone number.