11i Supplier Address Line 4 appears to work differently in 12.1.3

I am submitting this question again, with an additional question, based on a response I received:

In Oracle 11i, we used the Supplier Address line 4 as a "notes" field. We would enter a note on the supplier record after we completed a merge referencing the new supplier number. This information did not copy over to the new supplier record. However, when we follow the same process in 12.1.3 it copies over the values from Address Line 4. When we remove the text from this field on the (new) merged supplier, it then removes it from the original supplier record as well. Through additional testing we have found, when you add a note (to the original