Comisión de EE.UU. investiga compra de Waze por parte de Google por posible monopolio

Esta investigación por parte de la FTC se produce tras una serie de demandas de grupos de consumidores preocupados por que la adquisición pueda acaparar el mercado.

La Comisión Federal de Comercio de Estados Unidos (FTC) está investigando la compra de Waze por parte del gigante estadounidense por un total de US$ 1.300 millones (990 millones de euros).

Esta investigación por parte de la FTC se produce tras una serie de demandas de grupos de consumidores preocupados por que la adquisición pueda acaparar el mercado.

Google anunciaba la compra del servicio de navegación israelí Waze hace dos semanas.

Después de informaciones que apuntaban a que el gigante de Internet estaba interesado en esta compañía, a través de su blog oficial confirmó la noticia. Aunque en su momento no se desveló de forma oficial el costo total de la compra, se estimó que Google pagó US$ 1.300 millones para adquirir el servicio de mapas en línea en tiempo real.

Una de las razones por la que Google decidió adquirir Waze tiene que ver con la protección de su liderazgo en uno de los activos más cruciales en el uso de dispositivos avanzados, la navegación móvil.

Sin embargo, dos semanas después de la adquisición la FTC quiere investigar el motivo de esta compra. Según recoge el diario The Guardian, tras las quejas de grupos de consumidores la comisión estadounidense ha abierto una investigación para confirmar que la compra de Waze no se trata de una táctica monopolística por parte de Google.

Esta investigación es la última de una serie realizada por los reguladores antimonopolio que se aplican a Google en los Estados Unidos y Europa. Se sigue estudiando un decreto de consentimiento con la FTC a partir de la intención de bloquear el posible abuso de las patentes por su filial de Motorola, y en Europa se enfrenta a sus propuestas para cambiar la forma en que presenta los resultados de búsqueda, bajo una investigación realizada por el grupo de defensa de la competencia de la Comisión Europea.
    
Google aseguró al anunciar la compra de Waze a principios de este mes, que mantendrá el servicio de navegación como una unidad independiente por el momento. La FTC ha dicho a las dos compañías que pueden seguir siendo independientes mientras se esté llevando a cabo la investigación.
    
Inmediatamente después del anuncio de la adquisición, el grupo de presión de EEUU Consumer Watchdog escribió al Departamento de Justicia, con el argumento de que "Google ya domina el negocio de mapas" y alegando que la compañía "fue capaz de abrirse paso a la dominación" por delante de los competidores, a través de su poder en el negocio de las búsquedas.

Tras estos argumentos, la FTC ha decidido investigar si la adquisición de Waze actuaría en contra de los intereses de los consumidores mediante la reducción de oferta de mercado.

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With Waze, Google Signals Arrival Of New Business Model

Google‘s purchase of Waze has gripped commentators who see it as a defensive move against Facebook or Apple. But as I wrote earlier it is actually a move deeper into the crowd and we need to reflect on that broader significance.

With the Waze purchase, Google has given a major endorsement to crowd investors and the risks they’ve taken on this new model of business.

Google has moved crowd center stage and increased significantly  the value of major exits in the crowdsourcing space. The most significant exits for investors in crowd projects over the past 18 months have been Instagram, Tumblr and Behance. But these are weak examples of the crowd business model.

Can Waze Jumpstart Google's Social Networking Drive?Robert HofContributor

Waze Says Google's Future Lies With The CrowdHaydn ShaughnessyContributor

Instagram was sold to Facebook for $1 billion back in April 2012, an exit that crowdsourcing.org counts as the biggest, until then, in a crowdsourced project. However, Instagram is more of a social network app than a crowd one. The crowd, in cases like this, actually builds little other than the sum of its parts.

There is, then, some confusion over what crowd businesses actually do. The idea that the “crowd” is every activity that more than two people engage in does not do justice to the business model.  Robert Hof, for example, here on Forbes, says that crowd is in Google’s DNA because of Page Rank.

That’s a bit like saying the NASDAQ and NYSE are crowdsourced intelligence platforms. It’s true, in a very limited sense. But the crowd as a business model is not really about sensing and using patterns in human behavior. A similar case can be made for Skype and other peer-to-peer platforms where there is no real intent to collaborate.

Waze is much more than that – it is a conscious, elective decision to participate in a cooperative act, just like Google’s other recent investment, Lending Club is a conscious decision to lend to peers. And it is different again from the Huffington Post, where people were selected for participation based on skills, networks or both.

Google said of the Waze deal:

“We’re excited about the prospect of enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features provided by Waze and enhancing Waze with Google’s search capabilities. The Waze community and its dedicated team have created a great source of timely road corrections and updates.”

They don’t mention much of its community or social networking attributes, which anyway seem pretty thin. Waze allows you to  “See other friends also driving to your destination, when you connect to Facebook. Coordinate everyone’s arrival times when you pick up or meet up with friends.” Sounds unlikely doesn’t it?

The second major exit in crowd projects recently was Behance, acquired by Adobe in December 2012. Behance was in fact more of a portfolio exhibition platform for creatives. Yahoo bought Tumblr recently, for the same price Google has paid for Waze, but Tumblr is a platform rather than a crowd.

Set alongside these three, Waze, arguably is the number one, major crowd exit. Google has drawn attention to crowd as a viable investment channel, and as a viable business model in the best sense, with strong growth and investor returns. Crowd-related projects have been having a sticky time with investors precisely because the exit route has not been as well signed as they would like. Platforms like eLance and oDesk have been around for a long time now.

eLance raised $16 million in investment earlier last year (from Kleiner Perkins, investors in Waze, among others) but the company goes back some way now. It was founded in 1998 and its long journey to exit must pain some investors.

Major investors like Kleiner Perkins and Google Ventures are increasingly involved in crowd projects without making it their number one priority. With the Waze purchase that might well change. Slowly, slowly the financial community are seeing the advantages of mass collaboration. Now they can see the financial benefits too. That’s a big endorsement of a new business model.

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