"Google says its new service — called Google Editions — will allow users to buy digital copies of books they discover through its book-search service. It will also allow book retailers — even independent shops — to sell Google Editions on their own sites, taking the bulk of the revenue."
According to Google, the service will sell "online access to million of books. This means you can read an entire book from any Internet-connected computer, simply by logging in to your Book Search account, and it will remain on your electronic bookshelf, so you can come back and access it whenever you want in the future."
For now, Google Editions will only allow users to read in-print books, since Google can't yet distribute out-of-print books. Google's hosted electronic book store will have the following tagline: "buy anywhere, read anywhere," but I think Google should change it to: "buy anywhere, read anywhere you have Internet access".