Google Has 'Waze' of Making You Click on its Maps

Last summer, Google acquired the Israeli mapping startup Waze for close to $1 billion dollars. At the time, people were uncertain why the owner of the Internet — and its own GPS-enabled mapping system — would do such a thing for such a price.

Now, thanks to a nice read by Digiday, we have an inkling to the methods of Google’s madness. Introducing logos run-a-muck on maps. Yes, kids. It’s all about the Benjamins and advertising…

It turns out that Waze figured out how crowdsource traffic information through logo imagery, which has tickled the freakish fancy of advertisers and drivers alike.