What you need to know
- The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will reportedly be taking a second look at Google's acquisition of Waze.
- Google's acquisition of the Israeli company behind navigation app Waze for $1.1 billion was approved by the FTC in 2013.
- Antitrust experts say a 'second look' is required as the deal combined two popular digital mapping services and eliminated a fast-growing rival, giving Google greater control over valuable data.
Google had acquired the Israeli company behind Waze for $1.1 billion in June 2013. Even though the FTC had approved the transaction nearly seven years back, antitrust experts believe the regulator will be taking a second look as it allowed Google to eliminate a fast-growing rival and further strengthened its grip over user data.
Sally Hubbard, director of enforcement strategy at the Open Markets Institute, which has been pushing for a crackdown on major tech firms, said:
It was literally Google acquiring its number one competitor in maps. It was a bad deal that should have been blocked.
When the deal was announced in 2013, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney had said that the move "eliminates Waze as a potential acquisition target for competitors who could use the app's collection of data and 50 million users to bolster their own location-based products."
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