According to a new report entitled "U.S. Internet: The End of the Beginning" released by Wall Street firm Sanford C. Bernstein, Google and Amazon.com will be long-term winners, while Yahoo and IAC InterActiveCorp fall by the wayside and eBay Inc becomes a merger target, the Reuters reported.

Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay argued in the report that Google and Amazon are best placed to withstand the recent economic downturn.

"We expect two players to continue to perform strongly, Google and Amazon," according to Lindsay. "Both Google and Amazon.com are still racking up annual growth rates in the 30-40 percent range, with only a relatively modest slowdown in sight."

Lindsay reiterated his opinion that Yahoo will be sold to Microsoft Corp. eventually, and IAC e-commerce conglomerate will have a five-way split-up in August, as planned.

"Arguably the weakest players have strayed furthest from their original competences and have been operating largely as conglomerates," he said of Yahoo and IAC, the Reuters reported.

However, Lindsay believes in the short-run Yahoo will report gains if it reaches a deal with Google to turn over some part of its search ad sales, or if Microsoft resumes acquisition negotiations.

According to the report, eBay could “potentially attract a Microsoft-like suitor in the future”, especially if it fails on the growth in its core auctions business, and because it could spin off its units, such as PayPal or Skype, to make a deal work.

In terms of the strongest companies, however, Lindsay argued that they still have weakness. “Google has yet to articulate a compelling strategy to achieve the same level of strength on the emerging mobile Internet that it has on the computer-based Web,” he said.

“Amazon and eBay are likely to be forced eventually to pay state sales taxes.” Ironically, they may benefit from this because large companies have more resources than smaller players to collect such taxes, he pointed out.