Waze Maps: Rival to Google's Waze Says Waze Stole Traffic Data

A map app called PhantomAlert accuses Waze of stealing their map data in order to improve their product before selling it to Google, CNET reports.

PhantomAlert filed a lawsuit Tuesday in a San Francisco federal court. In the lawsuit, PhantomAlert claims that they found their own map data inside Waze. Waze is now owned by Google, who purchased the app company in 2013 for almost $1 billion.

Waze and PhantomAlert are similar programs that alert users of traffic jams, road conditions and red light cameras.

"Without any authorization or consent, Waze copied the PhantomAlert database and incorporated the data into the Waze application," lawyers for PhantomAlert wrote in their complaint. 

Waze might have been trying to improve their maps and features to increase the sales price of their app. Prior to being sold, Google and Facebook had a bidding war for Waze.

PhantomAlert's CEO Yosef Seyoum discovered that Waze may have stolen data from his company when he accessed the Waze app and found fictitious map data from his own database inside the Waze app.

"I said, 'What did they do right then, that they got a billion dollar exit?'" Seyoum said. 

Seyoum looked closely into the Waze app and found his company's fake information, used for testing purposes, inside the Waze database.

PhantomAlert uses the fake data to test their product. Since this data is unique to them, the data should not appear on any other app's database.

"When I looked at their map, I started seeing some anomalies," Seyoum said. "How could my error or watermark show up on Waze's map?" 

PhantomAlert's lawsuit aims to get payment for the stolen data and punish Waze for stealing it. PhantomAlert's case will depend on the quality of evidence they have that Waze did in fact steal from them.

PhantomAlert's lawyer says Waze has stole data from them multiple times and has described the consequences for the stolen data.

Seyoum says Google would not be happy to find out that Waze stole information from PhantomAlert prior to selling their app to the Internet search giant.