Thanks @deepbits for such an interesting facts.
Yes, Google, Apple and other big companies use power of crowd in order to massively collect data. This approach as also known as crowdsourcing. It's applied to gather info about Wi-Fi/Bluetoth access points that's used then to refine positioning accuracy in their maps. But it hasn't been applied yet to perform visual mapping. and I think PokemonGo is a big step toward this direction!