Ask HN: Speculate on whether Amazon will enter the search engine game

Amazon A9 is now a decade old. Amazon has really been doing a good job at ads lately too - contextual ads that are very good and rival Google AdWords in terms of connecting with users' wants and needs IMO. So the question is, "Will Amazon ever make A9 a full-fledged search engine outside of Amazon and market it as such?"

If you go to A9's home page today, the answer seems to be "What? That's a search engine?" It's not marketed - or at least, in the US, I've not seen any ads except "Powered by A9" on a Amazon page. The home page is "Uhhhh - what is it?"

But... the engineering is there. The ads are there. Could Amazon make a go at Google with it?

http://a9.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com