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I stumbled into the about section, and in there they mention they're using a fleet of 500 volunteer ADS-B receivers networked to a central server, and they actually just pick up on planes with ADS-B transponders (more common in Europe than the US, it seems) - http://www.flightradar24.com/about - so it looks like they're not aggregating official/moderated data feeds or anything.

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FlightRadar24 nevertheless follows the FAA 5-minute rule. In other countries, there is even a delay of 10 or 15 minutes.

In Switzerland, the federal aviation authorities tried to impose a delay as well. After a wave of protest pointing out the absurdity of such security through obscurity – you can see aircraft in the sky after all! -, a delay is no longer necessary and you can check in real time which aircraft is flying over your head at the moment (if equipped with ADS-B).

I'm not sure it follows the 5-minute rule for non-FAA data. I've watched, for example, an Emirates A380 go over my flat (near Heathrow) almost exactly as it's passing on the FlightRadar24 map.

They recently added FAA data to the US map (go to Settings on the left and tick "Show FAA traffic").

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