Earlier in the month, Google upgraded the Local Business Center with additional communication options:

A number of readers expressed some confusion about the feature. Maps Guide Jen was kind enough to elucidate its limited function in an email exchange that we had recently.

Mike: Could you give us any insight into the new Business Communications feature in the LBC…when will it be functional, what sorts of things we might expect to get from it and what “Receive notifications when changes are made to your business listings” means?

Maps Guide Jen: The new communications feature in the LBC is functional already; the way it works is that if we make any major changes to the LBC (for example, this latest UI change) or if we have any news that we think Local Business Center owners should know about, people who have selected the choice to receive notifications will hear about them directly.

Mike: Has it been used by Google yet?

Maps Guide Jen: We haven’t sent anything out yet! But we will 🙂

From what I can gather the “Account Updates Receive notifications” feature is likely to include notifications for system wide updates such as the recent UI refresh and is not intended to provide any additional granularity at this point.