Well, between "Google is tracking people with cell phones to look at their common patterns and doing AI on the data", "Google actually sent out a surveyor to a hunting lease to track this guy's new trail", or "Google purchased someone else's survey of the new hunting trail", I find the first one most plausible by quite a bit.
I live in a less rural area but I've still noticed a handful of things in my area marked as more complete roads than they should be. Nobody in person would mistake them for even the lowest grade of official road in use around here.
Google regularly sends surveys to people showing they are tracking their movements. Like you’ll eat at a restaurant and get a survey about it. They don’t even hide this fact that they do this:
I live in a less rural area but I've still noticed a handful of things in my area marked as more complete roads than they should be. Nobody in person would mistake them for even the lowest grade of official road in use around here.