Technology / Google Meet Google's Next $1B Buy Waze buy thwarts rivals, might raise anti-trust concerns By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff Posted Jun 10, 2013 7:39 AM CDT Copied Ben Gleitzman waves his hand over a traffic and navigation app called Waze on his Apple iPhone in a Menlo Park, Calif., parking lot during a demonstration, March 15, 2012 photo. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) Google is close to finalizing one of the biggest acquisitions in its history, with a more than $1 billion deal for the maps and traffic app Waze, the Wall Street Journal reports. Here's what makes the move interesting: Google already has a maps app. You might have heard of it. And that might make anti-trust regulators raise an eyebrow. Google Maps and Waze may remain separate apps, one source says, but they'll share key data. Which means... Google Maps is about to get better. Waze's key competency is traffic data, drawing on users' GPS data to learn about its flow. Apple, Facebook out in the cold. Both the rival tech giants have at some point been rumored to acquire the Israeli startup. Microsoft, meanwhile, is an investor in Waze. It's a lot of money. The buy would be Google's fourth-largest ever, behind only Motorola, YouTube, and DoubleClick. (More Google stories.) Report an error