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One interesting thing about Amazon (which can also be said about other online shopping services, but I’m focusing on Amazon because it’s the biggest and most well-known in its field) is that it doesn’t have control over a basic tool for its service.
I’m talking about the web browser, which on mobile devices can be replaced (with some restrictions) by your own apps, but on PCs is the way to get to your store.
This may seem like a small problem, but if we think about it, Amazon is letting out a lot of the information that a web browser can gather about a person’s habits and interests, and it’s very likely that this information will be used to make purchases. The browser market is very complicated, but it’s surprising that the e-commerce giant hasn’t tried anything other than Amazon Silk, which only works on its own devices and has very few features.
But, as we can read on Gizmodo, this may soon change. A survey sent to some users suggests that Amazon may be working on a new web browser based on artificial intelligence.
The company wants to know what customers like about browsers as they are now and what they’d like to see browsers do better.
The survey asks for different features that might make people want to download and try a “new desktop or laptop browser from Amazon.”There are features for privacy, sharing passwords across devices, and shopping.
Amazon hasn’t confirmed or denied the project, but if it goes ahead, it could have big effects on the company’s advertising business. Because it knows what people buy and how often, Amazon is one of the biggest players in the online advertising market. If you could combine that information with the data that a web browser collects, you could make internet advertising work better for you.
Amazon’s possible web browser would also come at a time when the advertising industry is getting ready for a huge change that will hurt its business.
This is because Google is close to getting rid of third-party cookies in Chrome, which is one of the main ways to track consumers and show them personalized ads. This could be the main reason why Amazon is thinking about making its own web browser.
But if Amazon does try it, it could be hard because users already know how important privacy is. Even though Amazon asks about this in the survey, common sense tells us that the survey could be messed up if the browser combines store account data with browsing data. Now, we’re talking about a giant, so it’s possible that it will be able to offer something interesting enough to attract users.
