Qlopedia

Navigation website and app, live traffic, community reports, map editors, route alerts, Google ownership, city partnerships, and crowdsourced road data

Website

Waze

Waze is a navigation website and app that uses community reports, live traffic information, map editing, and route calculation to help drivers choose routes and avoid delays.

Created
Waze says it created a crowd-sourced navigation app in 2009 to help drivers work together around traffic.
Owner
Google announced in June 2013 that it had closed the acquisition of Waze.
Core community
Waze relies on drivers, map editors, beta testers, translators, partners, and users to improve road information.
Waze combines navigation, live traffic, community reports, and map editing for drivers.View image on original site

What Waze is

Waze is a navigation website and app for drivers. On Waze.com, people can use live maps, plan drives, and download the app, while the mobile experience combines turn-by-turn directions with traffic, hazard, closure, crash, and road-condition reports from the driving community. The official Waze app is available on the App Store and Google Play.

Waze homepage screenshot showing navigation, traffic, and driver-focused interface imagery.
Waze's homepage emphasizes live navigation, traffic awareness, and driver reports from its community.

Community traffic

Waze's signature idea is that drivers help other drivers. Users can report slowdowns, crashes, road hazards, police presence, closures, and other conditions, giving the routing system and nearby drivers more timely context than a static map can provide.

Map editing

Behind the app is a volunteer map-editing community that updates streets, turns, closures, points of interest, restrictions, and local road details. Those edits help Waze reflect changing roads, temporary events, and local knowledge that may be missing from general map data.

Routing and alerts

Waze uses road data, live traffic, user reports, and historical patterns to suggest routes. It can reroute drivers when conditions change, but every navigation app has limits: reports can be late, routes can be surprising, and the fastest path for one driver may not feel best for everyone on the road.

Google ownership

Google acquired Waze in 2013 and said the Waze team would remain in Israel and operate separately at first. The acquisition linked Waze's community traffic data with Google's mapping ecosystem while keeping Waze's driver-focused identity distinct from Google Maps.

Cities and partners

Waze also works with cities, transportation authorities, broadcasters, businesses, and first responders. These partnerships can help officials understand disruptions, share traffic events, and communicate road information back to drivers.

Why it matters

Waze shows how a navigation service can be shaped by a live community rather than only by official road databases. It changed driver expectations around real-time alerts, helped normalize crowdsourced traffic reporting, and raised new questions about routing, privacy, road safety, and neighborhood traffic impacts.

WHOIS domain data

Data pulled: May 24, 2026View current WHOIS record

Domain
waze.com
IP address
130.211.9.172
Registrar
MarkMonitor Inc.
WHOIS server
whois.markmonitor.com
Referral URL
http://www.markmonitor.com
Created
April 1, 2000
Updated
February 28, 2026
Expires
April 1, 2027
Nameservers
ns-cloud-b1.googledomains.com (216.239.32.107); ns-cloud-b2.googledomains.com (216.239.34.107); ns-cloud-b3.googledomains.com (216.239.36.107); ns-cloud-b4.googledomains.com (216.239.38.107)
Domain status
clientDeleteProhibited; clientTransferProhibited; clientUpdateProhibited
DNSSEC
unsigned
Registrant contact
Organization Google LLC; address US
Registrant email
Select Request Email Form at https://domains [dot] markmonitor [dot] com/whois/waze [dot] com
Tech contact email
Select Request Email Form at https://domains [dot] markmonitor [dot] com/whois/waze [dot] com