19 Facts About Waze

Waze, formerly FreeMap Israel, is a subsidiary company of Google that provides satellite navigation software on smartphones and other computers that support the Global Positioning System.

Waze describes its application as a community-driven initiative that is free to download and use.

In June 2013, the Federal Trade Commission of the United States began a consideration of whether Google's acquisition of Waze was potentially violating competition law; Waze was among a very small group of competitors in the mobile mapping sector against Google Maps.

Waze sends anonymous information, including users' speed and location, back to its database to improve the service as a whole.

Waze can identify the cheapest fuel station near a user or along their route, provided Waze has enabled fuel prices for that country.

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Waze offers turn-by-turn voice navigation, real-time traffic, and other location-specific alerts.

Waze encourages users to report traffic or road hazards through incentives such as acquiring points for their profiles.

Waze has the ability to direct users based on crowdsourced information.

Waze users are able to report a multitude of traffic-related incidents from accidents to police traps.

In June 2013, Waze introduced a global localization project that enables future road closures and real-time traffic updates during major events in a given country, for example the Tour de France.

In May 2017, Waze introduced the ability for users to record their own voice navigation prompts.

In September 2018, Waze introduced Apple CarPlay support after Apple released iOS 12.

However, Android users won't be able to link Deezer, and iOS users won't have access to Pandora, NPR, or TuneIn when Waze announced its partnership in Medium suggesting joining its beta program to be able to use mentioned services.

In February 2019, Waze updated its iOS platform with Siri Shortcuts support.

Waze announced that starting in October 2020, it would implement trip suggestions, pulling together suggestions from recently visited places.

Waze ran a dedicated carpooling app, Waze Carpool, which was first launched in 2016 and was available in the USA, Brazil, and Israel.

Waze launched the Connected Citizens Program in June 2014, a free, two-way data sharing program used by over 450 governments, departments of transportation, and municipalities for traffic analysis, road planning, and emergency workforce dispatching.

Ehud Shabtai who initiated and developed Freemap and Waze continuously insisted to crowdsource data without using external sources or projects like OpenStreetMap that would restrict commercialization of the Waze map data.

Class action suit was filed in March 2014 by accountant Roey Gorodish against Waze, claiming intellectual property violation for the use of open-source FreeMap map and code from the open-source RoadMap software, a project that Ehud Shabtai had contributed for the Windows PocketPC version in 2006.