Attention, Amazon Shoppers: Google Wants Some of Your Spending Money

So as Amazon and Google appear to spat over who will be left standing- and was that a bricks and mortar bookstore I saw yesterday that said AMAZON on it?- the always forward-thinking southern States will one by one declare abortion illegal, probably in the name of God and Donald Trump will be awarded a second term because so far, only two people have appeared who might hold their own with his own particular style on a stage and one is perceived as being too out there and one is a woman and We, the People, will wander around like a bunch of overfed twits wondering where it all went wrong. That, of course, is just me.

time for Mnuchin to sweep in to the rescue with a new Superman v Batman epic.

Google is on my black list. It’s search engine has become a money grubbing engine that does its users no service, instead sending them to those who see dollar signs rather than providing an efficience search engine service. I have reverted to using bing and Safari. Fie on Google!

Ah, yes, but hasn't Amazon made some dangerous changes lately? Jumping into the 3rd party seller, with little knowledge of the quality... Questionable customer ratings... Time to have some competition to clean it up!

I think I saw this movie before, except it was called "King Kong vs. Godzilla".

I say this half-jokingly and half-not. I wonder if this country will become as divided into passionate Google and Amazon camps as they are divided into passionate Liberal and Conservative camps. With the dominance of these companies, in the coming generation, their tentacles will reach so deeply into the fabric of American lives, that this debate over which "ecosystem" should dominate may actually become a contentious issue not unlike our current "culture wars" between Liberals and Conservatives are waging.

Google does ads, and they do them very well. Google isn't very good at search; I use Bing for quicker and more actionable results and fewer ads. Google is passable but rather poor at voice recognition. A year ago, I had a Windows phone, and it was better at voice recognition than Google is now, and also had a better, more efficient GUI, and it was overall a better operating system. (I had to leave Windows phone because Windows lost the app competition.) Amazon has search problems, but I wish Google would just stick to ads so I can avoid them.

How long until they merge? I mean isn't this the way it's going?

What we need to fear are the robots that will take over even the warehouse jobs as Amazon announced this week. If we don't have jobs because AI has eliminated them, who will be the shoppers? This has a more sinister effect on our long term livelihood. We should be planning for the future and I for one am scared.

At the same time as cheating to pay no taxes in Europe by hiding under fake European entities fiscally registered in Europe, all major US corporations infringe and refuse to respect the European laws about data privacy by invoqing that they are US originated creative corporations , acting under US laws in Europe. All the ways Americans can cheat, they do it with no scrupules.

Amazon and google are both fiscally registered in Europe. In Ireland. Not in the USA . Same as most other major US corporations : Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, Starbucks, Netflix, etc ...all hiding under fake Irish fiduciaries to be able to cheat and pay zero taxes . The US corporations dishonest activities in Europe result in a massive fiscal fraud on the back of European workers equivalent to the annual deficit of the EU budget : 20 %. While invading the market and destroying the European economies. Mc Donalds succeeds at cheating also and pays no taxes in Europe, its second clientele after the USA . The cash money is repatriated to the US via the London bank exchange and its connexions with the US offshore banks in the Caribbean. Like a trail of thieves.

Or maybe, just maybe, the ad game is finally reaching the saturation point. I've been using an adblocker for a long time and pay zero attention to ads for the stuff I just bought. AI is good at feeding you the past but still doesn't know what you'll want in the future w/o some help from you. If tariffs are going to be a thing, it'll be interesting to see how much lower prices could go after the merchant has to add 25% to their prices.

So wait I'm confused. If they compete against each other that means they will have to lower their prices & we the consumer will benefit. Yet Elizabeth Warren announced two months ago that she wants to break these companies up because they're bad for consumers. Hmmm lets think about this. After all the US is dominating the computer, internet search & commerce markets that can't be good. Google? I am pretty sure there are some, well, decent Ukrainian search engines we can be using. Amazon? The most successful company in the world, we should not allow them to continue. It doesn't matter that Amazon's 300 million customers have a good opinion of the company because Amazon won us over with superior competitive goods & services? It doesn't count since taking up Amazon Prime we're a far better informed, more empowered, and better served consumer. That doesn't matter. Mrs. Warren is right, break them up. We don't need Silicon Valley & the conveniences it creates. These companies need to be regulated, monitored & controlled. So maybe this move will obliterate the value of $401K's for millions of Americans but we will be better off. Driving the tech companies into the arms of the GOP may be a terrible strategy at this critical moment in America's political history but it will be worth it. And who is better to decide how to run a business and which direction the innovation should go if not our government with its experts. Just look at Amtrak, Veterans Administration, & USPS.

amazon will win. google has been on auto-pilot for years.

Who to cheer snd root for as the these two new gilded age robber baron malefactors of wealth clash and compete? A good death for both that breaks and busts them up and sends their leaders to prison if warranted would be fine. Two neutron stars or two black holes colliding seem to have some significantly positive effects.

Google is an also-ran and has been for years. Google's irrelevance has been masked by its huge revenue numbers. All google knows how to do now is serve advertising. Fear google? Why?

This competition is great news to the general public. Great news, exactly what we all need to reduce Amazon's so called "lower pricing" nonsense, and their real pricing power - dynamic pricing. And this reduces googles enormous power to twist reality any way they choose.

I was recently looking for a particular shoe on line, and I clicked on an ad that gave different prices from different stores. I got the shoes at a good price and it worked out ok. I was surprised to see that the sale went through something called Google Express. Luckily I didn't have to return the shoes. The return process looked difficult to figure out.

A sad loss for the ski mask industry.

I guess Amazon should probably just buy Alphabet, Bezos should obviously run for president (hey! look! a self-made billionaire), and we should all just accept serfdom.

call me old-fashioned, but I will stay with amazon when shopping and Google when all I need is info of some sort. I will NOT buy anything through Google (nor would I ever click on any of their ads anyway), nor would I ever click on any ad when shopping through amazon.

Amazon's prices have already doubled. Almost anywhere has a better price including CVS etc.

There are people who still shop on Amazon? LOL

The Googlers like to think they're the smartest folks in Silicon Valley but, yet again, Google is playing catch up. The Mountain View geniuses completely missed the social networking juggernaut to FaceBook. (Then Google tried catch-up with an epic fail in social networking, called G+, now dead.) They were allegedly the top of the top in giga-scale servers, only to have their head (so to speak) handed to them first by Amazon's hugely successful AWS Cloud services, long the go-to choice of start-ups, corporations, the Federal Government, etc. Only then to be out-built, and out-sold by (gasp!) Microsoft's Azure Cloud. Now the Google geeks are playing catch-up to Amazon (again) this time in selling (real) stuff to real people. Good luck with that, given how little the much ballyhooed Google "big bets", well, according to their latest financials, are anything--except big.

Who cares? They’re both monopolies. They’re both going to get my money anyways. Let them fight it out.

Other comments are for another article (NYT: please correct). Very concerned about facial recognition and where it will lead society. We are no different than China in this space. At least China makes it known to citizens so we are actually worse. I hope this is a precedent for other cities and eventually our country. Amen to this decision and kudos to San Francisco for leading our country in the right direction. Facial recognition is just plain creepy, and that includes Arlo and Ring.

Forget it Google...I won't even use your server, because your software is so intrusive and doesn't respect privacy. Never leaving Amazon.

Hey, what about ebay? I compare amazon and google to ebay, especially if I'd consider a used item. Everything is easier than going to brick and mortar store. It's too bad. I'd like to support local stores, but they more often than not don't have the selection.

Bigger, bigger, not big enough! More, more....More! but oops, suddenly, it’s enough. Now behemoths want in on everything. And look at what has happened to social media, they got so big at fb and Twitter but they now are censoring people on “our” internet. It didn’t start that way. Shouldn’t our anti trust laws intervene before its 3 people and 5 companies that control commerce, and the public square? Wait, we’re already there.

Used this service today for the first time. It was the only source I could find for a specific item, color, size etc. This Amazon Prime member always searches the best price, shipping, return policy. Amazon often wins but not always

What to do about a problem like Amazon? Yesterday at afternoon I somehow cracked the plastic knob on my dryer, a few minutes on Amazon, found the part and viola! today at 10:00 am Amazon delivery at my doorstep. Total cost less than $10 dollars with Annual Prime membership. It made me forget my subscription renewal increases later this year, but that does not matter, they've hooked me. If only they could fix the Prime Now Grocery service, I would be set for life.

Not only do I have to sift through spam email, but now there are banner ads. I will attempt to move away from Google services in the future because this is too much.

Google for search, maps, etc. Amazon for shopping. Best to stay focused on your core strengths. But Google has a big lead in deep learning technologies (used for example in self-driving cars). Someday, that will pay off.

I don't plan to use this service at all, not because it won't be good, but because I know Google has no plans to maintain it. It won't be able to compete against Amazon realistically, because it's basically relying on individual retailers to match Amazon's prices and reliability for quick and cheap delivery. But the problem there is that if they were capable of doing that, they'd be doing it already. There's a reason Amazon dominates. So Google will end up doing what they always do when a new product doesn't become an instant smash hit: they'll shut it down within 2 years, scrap the entire thing. They've done it dozens of times already with myriad different ideas. I've learned not to expect longevity from Google. This inability to commit to an idea is why they will never challenge Amazon for dominance in this arena, because Amazon was willing to eat more than a decade of losses, of negative income, to build itself up to become the juggernaut it currently is. Bezos was that committed to it. It takes amazing grit to see your company lose money and stay the course because you're convinced it will work out eventually, you'll see profit eventually. Nobody at Google seems to have that kind of vision. They're brilliant, but flaky, and seem to take a shotgun approach to ideation. If you throw enough ideas at the market something is bound to stick.

I no longer use Amazon for shopping because of the way they treat their workers. They are union-busters and are helping make America unequal again. What's Google going to contribute to this problem? I will wait and see. I will pay more for products sold by small stores. I buy books from Thriftbooks. I am concerned about where my children will work in the future. If Bezos gave 1/2 his fortune divided among every one of his employees they each would get $200k, enough for a house in many parts of this country.

No matter what, I will Never shop Google bc they have so little respect for their customers by violating their privacy. Their violation go way back. There are a lot of people at Stanford University who won't use Google for this reason. So Amazon will continue to get my business. I buy online from my "Privacy" window on Firefox.

I've been an Amazon Prime customer for 10-ish years (don't exactly recall, but it was early in Prime's existence). I start a lot of my product searches on Amazon. Sometimes I'm lazy and just type the product into the browser. But I scan the results for the word Amazon...and click. Sometimes I'm looking for a plumbing, motorcycle, lawn mower, washing machine, etc. part or tool. I'll search Google, but in THE FRONT (not the back) of my mind is to do a price, shipping cost, and speed of delivery comparison. It's rare that Amazon isn't the best alternative. I don't think Google has a chance, this just isn't what they do.