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In the past, Google has tried emulating Amazon.com Inc.’s online retail and delivery services, with little luck. Now the search giant is positioning itself as a kind of anti-Amazon, a free marketplace for merchants and Amazon rivals that’s designed to get consumers more comfortable shopping with Google.

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle unit of Alphabet Inc., is withdrawing from in-person events at CES, joining a growing list of companies avoiding the major technology conference scheduled for next month.

Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo will offer rides in its autonomous vehicles to select passengers in San Francisco, marking its second launch of a taxi service and a hint of the company’s commercial ambitions.

Nearly all of the biggest names in media and technology descended on Sun Valley, Idaho, July 11-16, and in the mix this year were trucking networks, spider silk and quantum physics.

Uber Technologies Inc. fired Anthony Levandowski, the engineer hired to lead its self-driving car efforts who is now at the center of a legal spat over the technology with Google parent Alphabet Inc.

The latest Google drones have just started taking flight in the real world. But the team behind the technology is slowing down, trimming headcount and shelving initiatives as the experimental unit becomes the latest target of tightening budgets across parent company Alphabet Inc.