Google面临反托拉斯查询

The European Commission love a good inquiry. Oracle, Apple and Microsoft have all been hit, and now they’ve now turned their legal turrets toward Google. Although Google have faced antitrust accusations in the US and Europe before, this is the first official inquiry into the company’s search and advertising services.

欧盟委员会对此表示赞赏。 Oracle ， 苹果和微软都受到了打击，现在他们已经将法律塔楼转向了谷歌。 尽管Google之前曾在美国和欧洲面临反托拉斯指控，但这是对该公司搜索和广告服务的首次正式调查。

搜索结果公平吗？ (Are Search Results Fair?)

The first aspect of the inquiry has been sparked by complaints from Foundem, a UK price comparison service, and ejustice.fr, a French legal search engine. Both accuse Google of relegating their websites to an unfairly low place in search engine results.

来自英国价格比较服务Foundem和法国法律搜索引擎ejustice.fr的投诉引发了调查的第一方面。 双方都指控谷歌将他们的网站降级到搜索引擎结果中的不公平位置。

Google has denied that it deliberately penalizes sites which are a competitive threat to its own services. Independent SEO analysts have also pointed out that Foundem has little original content because it scrapes product information from other websites.

Google否认有意惩罚对其自身服务构成竞争威胁的网站。 独立的SEO分析师还指出，Foundem的原创内容很少，因为它会从其他网站上抓取产品信息。

Google can certainly modify the indexing of individual sites — for example, domains can be blocked if they’re found to be spoofing content or engaging in black-hat SEO practices. However, would Google seriously consider these two sites to be a threat? If Google engaged in mass rank manipulation, it would involve a colossal amount of human effort and search results could become meaningless.

Google当然可以修改单个网站的索引-例如，如果发现域名欺骗了内容或从事黑帽SEO做法，则可以将其阻止。 但是，Google是否会认真考虑将这两个网站视为威胁？ 如果Google进行大规模排名操纵，那将需要大量的人力，搜索结果可能变得毫无意义。

This aspect of the inquiry should be thrown out unless it can be categorically proven that Google are abusing their search dominance and hurting competitors. The floodgates will open if Foundem and ejustice.fr win owing to some legal technicality — every business will be able to claim their “rightful” search result position.

除非可以明确证明Google正在滥用其搜索优势并伤害竞争对手，否则应放弃这一方面的调查。 如果Foundem和ejustice.fr由于某种法律上的技巧而获胜，则将打开闸门-每个企业都将能够声明其“合法的”搜索结果位置。

广告费用合理吗？ (Are Advertising Costs Fair?)

The second part of the inquiry centers on Google AdWords and has been raised by Ciao.

查询的第二部分以Google AdWords为中心，由Ciao提出。

AdWords is possibly the largest advertising network on the net. Costs are set by auction; if you agree to pay 50c per advert click, you will normally appear above someone who’s paying 30c for the same search terms. However, Google set minimum bid levels and popular keywords can be seriously expensive — $10 or more.

AdWords可能是网络上最大的广告网络。 费用由拍卖确定； 如果您同意为每次广告点击支付50c，您通常会出现在为相同搜索字词支付30c的用户上方。 但是，Google设置了最低出价水平，而受欢迎的关键字可能会非常昂贵-10美元或以上。

This aspect of the inquiry could hit Google: they have the market dominance to artificially raise minimum bid prices. After all, a fair auction process should let you bid any amount — even if it means your advert is shown at 3am Sunday morning on page 57 of the search results.

询问的这一方面可能会打击Google：他们具有人为地提高最低竞标价格的市场主导地位。 毕竟，公平的拍卖程序应该可以让您竞标任何金额-即使这意味着您的广告会在搜索结果第57页的星期日凌晨3点显示。

Google has remarked that Ciao was acquired by Microsoft, is part of Bing, and can hardly be impartial. I’m no lawyer, but I think Google will need a better defense argument.

谷歌表示，Ciao被微软收购，是Bing的一部分，几乎不偏不倚。 我不是律师，但我认为Google将需要更好的辩护理由。

What do you think? Is Google being unfairly targeted? Or have they become too monolithic and rescinded on their promise to do no evil?

你怎么看？ Google是否受到不公正的针对？ 还是他们变得过于单一，对他们不做任何邪恶的承诺而放弃了？

翻译自: https://www.sitepoint.com/google-faces-antitrust-inquiry/