[earl]

Not really.

Look at google + mocality: it's easy to understand why the contractors where doing what they were: it helped them sell something or hit quota.

Compare to Google contractors + open street map: what incentive does a contractor have to go screw up their data? In the first case I see directly why unethical people would do what they did. What exactly is the motive here? Just griefing? It makes me wonder.