What with Facebook’s attempted acquisition of Waze thrown into doubt, reports have emerged that Google is about to drive forward with its own attempt to purchase the social mapping application. With Microsoft and Apple also rumoured to be interested, the battle for Waze could be about to erupt into an all-out bidding war between the tech world’s biggest players.

Bloomberg reports that Google’s interest in Waze was only stirred when Facebook’s intentions first became clear last week. The social media giant was reported to be in “late stage” negotiations with Waze’s owners, only for the deal to come unstuck earlier this week, apparently due to Facebook’s insistence that Waze move its operations to the US. Now, it’s become clear that there are other forces in play.

According to Bloomberg:

“Waze is fielding expressions of interest from multiple parties and is seeking more than $1 billion, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. The Palo Alto, California-based startup might also remain independent, instead seeking to raise a round of venture capital financing, the people said.”

Clearly the people at Waze are being far more astute than Facebook had anticipated. It’s likely that one of Waze’s co-founders or investors leaked news of the social media firm’s acquisition attempt in an effort to stir interest and create a “bidding war”, which is exactly what happened. Waze’s investors will almost certainly benefit as a result, boosting the final price of the acquisition and potentially securing other benefits.

Waze is highly valued, yet the priorities of the bidding parties are different. For Facebook, Waze’s technology would be a real asset as the social media giant currently lacks its own mapping service – something that would be extremely useful for it now its pushing into more targeted advertising with Graph Search and other features. For Microsoft and Apple meanwhile, the addition of Waze would certainly improve their own mapping services, both of which are inferior to that of Google’s.

However, Bloomberg believes that Google’s motivations for buying Waze are quite different from those of its rivals. The biggest advantage for Google is that by acquiring Waze, it would prevent its competitors from being able to use its technology, thus ensuring that Google Maps remains top dog. For this reason, Waze users should probably be worried – if Google does get its way, its likely that Waze would disappear as a standalone service, with its best features simply being absorbed into Google Maps. This would benefit Google’s mobile mapping app for sure, but it seems unlikely that the search company would be able replicate Waze’s social community or brand loyalty so easily – to the detriment of its current users.

What will be interesting is to see just how high the bidding might eventually go. A lot will depend on if Microsoft and Apple get involved – if so, the final price could be well over a billion dollars. For sure, Waze’s investors and co-founders will be rubbing their hands with glee if such a deal comes to fruition, but as for Waze’s users, we can’t help but think they’re going to be dumped by the side of the road.