The Times reports that analysts and industry executives say the uneasy relationship between portals and merchants could lead to a better shopping environment for consumers, if it leads to more choices. Internet merchants fear that portals will compete with them by selling goods directly to their users, as Lycos, has announced it plans to do. Consumers could be kept more on the portal site for shopping transactions, rather than be linked to merchants' sites. AOL announced a deal late last year aimed at increasing its ability to provide multimedia content by including RealNetworks' popular RealPlayer on its AOL 4.0 CD-ROMs. Infoseek has been busy co-developing the Go Network portal site with investors Starwave and Disney.
Online businesses have good reason to fear the power of portals.
A portal can capture most of the buyer's personal information through a registration process or a credit card form, the Times explains. Merchants fear that the portals will then sell that information to competing retailers, which could then market competing goods to those customers. Yet as more online merchants grow fearful of portals appropriating customers for their own, that room might get awfully small. Inc. All Rights Reserved.