Waze

Waze is a global positioning system (GPS) navigation mobile app and company founded in 2007 by Uri Levine, Amir Shinar, and Ehud Shabtai. Waze was acquired by Google in June 2013. As of December 2022, Waze has over 140 million monthly users.

An example of a Waze map with traffic alert symbols and nearby users.

Waze is a community-edited maps app that provides navigational directions to drivers. Maps and travel times are updated in real time as users submit information on obstacles they come across while driving, such as heavy traffic, car accidents, road work, and police activity. Waze uses these reports to update surrounding drivers in the area and potentially adjust their routes. Users can hear directions read aloud by participating celebrities, including DJ Khaled, Arnold Schwarzenegger, T-Pain, Stephen Colbert, Christina Aguilera, and the Jonas Brothers. Waze users, or Wazers, can see other nearby Wazers on the map while traveling. Nearby Wazers can "beep" at each other as a form of greeting. Users who are friends can share current locations and arrival times and exchange private messages. Wazers can change their avatar appearances to reflect their current emotions with Moods, a feature introduced in June 2020.

An early incompleted Waze map.

Waze began as FreeMap, a navigation app created in 2006 and based in Tel Aviv, Israel. The app began as a blank map that would draw roads based on the user's movements while the app was in use. Users would later upload those files from their phones and use the map editing tool to connect them to existing roads on the map. After FreeMap proved successful, the app was rebranded to Waze and debuted in January 2009. The app launched in the United States in May 2009, and worldwide in November 2009. Like FreeMap, Waze's maps are community-edited.

In October 2014, Waze launched the Connected Citizens Program (CCP), a two-way data exchange of traffic and road conditions to participating partners, which includes cities, local government agencies, nonprofits, and first responders. CCP partners receive real-time traffic information from Waze drivers, and in exchange, they provide real-time and advance notice of government-reported traffic incidents like construction, accidents, and road closures. The program is beneficial to partners who can use the driver-reported traffic data for purposes like city planning. As of 2018, Waze has over 600 partners through the CCP.

Waze was purchased by Google in June 2013 in a $966 million deal. On June 24, 2013, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced an investigation into Google's acquisition of Waze amid concerns of antitrust violations, as Waze was Google Maps's biggest competitor. The investigation was concluded in October 2013 but later reexamined in February 2020. In April 2022, a federal class action antitrust complaint was filed against Google. The complaint alleged that Google was unfairly dominating the GPS mapping market by connecting Google Maps, Waze, and other related GPS services, thereby locking in app developers and subjecting them to “egregious and anticompetitive price hikes.” The complaint was dismissed without prejudice on November 1, 2022, with Judge Jeffery S. White ruling that the plaintiffs––Big Dream Media, Getify Solutions, and Sprinter Supplier––failed to adequately allege their claims of Google's illegal tying practices.

In December 2022, Google announced it would merge Waze into Google Geo, a Google division that includes Google Maps, Google Earth, and Street View. Google stated it still planned to maintain Waze as a standalone service, and that Waze CEO Neha Parikh would step down from her role after a transitory period. Parikh's LinkedIn profile says she left the company in July 2023. In late June 2023, Google announced it would cut an unspecified number of jobs at Waze during the process of the product's integration with Google Maps.