经济学人:欧盟VS谷歌:并不如意(1)

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　　Europe v Google: Not so Froogle 欧盟VS谷歌：并不如意

　　The European Commission levies¹ a huge fine on Google for abusing its dominance on online search. 欧盟委员会对谷歌滥用搜索引擎巨头地位征收巨额罚款。

　　SHE was born to Lutheran ministers known to be both tough and principled. 她出生于以强硬和原则著称的路德教部长家。

　　As a child, she thought it unfair that pupils were not allowed to sell fruit and milk in school and successfully lobbied for change. 小时候，她认为学生不允许在学校里卖水果和牛奶这个规定是不公平，并且成功地游说改变了这个规定。

　　In her office in Brussels she keeps a statue of a raised middle finger, a gift from a trade union when she was deputy prime minister of Denmark,  在她在布鲁塞尔的办公室里放着一尊举起的中指雕塑，这是她当上丹麦的副总理从工会那里得到的礼物，

　　as a reminder² that there will always be critics. 这个礼物提醒着她无论做什么都总会有批评。

　　It shouldn't have come as a surprise that Margrethe Vestager, the European Union's competition commissioner³, took a tough line against Google this week. 不难预料，身为欧盟竞争委员的玛格丽特·韦斯塔格会对谷歌采取强硬的措施。

　　The size of the fine the tech giant will have to pay for abusing its monopoly in online search, 2.4bn euro ($2.7bn), sets a record for European antitrust penalties. 规模庞大的科技巨头将不得不为它滥用在线搜索的巨头地位付出代价，而24亿欧元（27亿美元）创下欧洲反垄断处罚纪录。

　　Yet more important than the amount is that she provided a rough guide to how the European Commission plans to deal with online firms which not only dominate a market,  然而更重要的是她对于欧洲委员会计划如何处理线上公司提供了一个简略的方向，

　　but essentially⁴ are the market. 线上公司不仅支配市场本质上它们就是市场。

　　In the 2000s Microsoft got into trouble because it had expanded its Windows monopoly by bundling it with its web browser⁵. 在2000年左右，微软因为它通过将其捆绑在网页浏览器上进一步扩大了Windows垄断而陷入了困境。

　　By comparison, Google's infraction⁶ seems minor⁷. 相比之下，谷歌的违规行为似乎微不足道。

　　In 2002 it launched a price-comparison service called Froogle, later renamed Google Shopping. 在2002年它发动了价格比较服务叫做购物搜索，后来改名为谷歌购物。

　　In 2008 it changed how this service works. 到了2008年，它改变了这项服务的运作方式。

　　According to the commission, the new version systematically⁸ favoured Google's own comparison-shopping results by giving them prominent placement at the top of its generic⁹ search results  根据证监会的调查，新的系统会有意偏心谷歌自己的比较购物搜索服务，因为它在常规搜索结果里把其服务放到显眼的高位，

　　and demoting links to rival offerings to pages further down in its results, where users hardly venture. 而将竞争对手的产品页面链接进一步下降到用户几乎不会浏览到的位置。

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