Just curious how they get the satellite pictures. Do they have their own? Is there an open-source option or public availability of satellite pictures somewhere?
Google has either purchased local map data from established companies, or has entered into lease agreements to use copyrighted map data. The owner of the copyright is listed at the bottom of zoomed maps. For example, street maps in Japan are leased from Zenrin. Street maps in China are leased from AutoNavi. Russian street maps are leased from Geocentre Consulting and Tele Atlas.
They also use images from the LandSat 8 satellite.In addition, the high resolution ones where you can see individual houses and the like when super zoomed in are interestingly often not satellite derived, but from things like airplanes or drones. Ones with just Google (or no specific company) listed as the copyright holder will definitely fall under that as they don’t have their own satellites, others might on a case by case basis.
They bought a company named Keyhole in the early 2000s
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/google-buys-satellite-image-firm-keyhole/
Check out Planet Labs, BlackSky, Maxar, and Spire Global. They all operate private fleets of satellites, if you have the budget they will sell you the data.