反垄断听证会：业界炮轰谷歌寡头做派

    正如大家事前所担忧的那样，上周三参议院以“谷歌的势力：服务用户还是威胁竞争？”为题的听证会最终流于形式。

    听证会压根没提谷歌公司（Google）对苹果公司（Apple）的所作所为，它抄袭苹果的触摸屏操作系统，然后免费提供给苹果的竞争对手。艾米•克劳布查（明尼苏达州民主党参议员）和查克•舒默（纽约州民主党参议员）大部分时间都在讨好谷歌董事长埃里克•施密特，实际上是在请求他将谷歌的光纤到户（fiber-to-the-home）试点扩大到他们所在的州。

    这场听证会长达三个小时，有些观众坚持听完了会议全程【可在有线卫星公众事务网络（C-Span）上观看】，有一点他们看得很清楚的：目前，谷歌已经发展到对互联网搜索业务拥有垄断规模的控制权，它的使命已经发生了改变。对此，点评网站Yelp首席执行官杰里米•斯托普曼概括得最为精辟：

    “我们得搞清楚一点。谷歌目前的业务已经不再是将用户导向最佳的互联网信息来源。它现在企图一步一步成为各个垂直市场的终端站点，包括新闻、购物、旅游，目前则已经拓展到了本地商户点评。如果这种扩张是在公平竞争环境下展开的，那是一码事，但现实并非如此。”

    我个人认为，Yelp公司的斯托普曼和Nextag公司的首席执行官杰夫•凯茨所提供的证词最令人信服，因为这两人的企业都依托于互联网，他们对互联网业务的游戏规则了如指掌。

    如下是斯托普曼向参议员提供的证词要点：

    “我这个行业经历的事情很能说明问题。谷歌强迫点评网站免费提供内容，但收益者不是用户，而是谷歌自己的竞争性产品。然后，谷歌在搜索结果中自己的产品更好的排名。”

    “一年前，谷歌开始未经授权就擅自使用我们的内容。我们在公开和私下场合都表示过抗议，但谷歌却对我们下达了只有垄断寡头才会给出的最后通牒：如果你们想要在网络搜索中出现，就必须允许我们使用你们的内容与你们展开竞争。在座的各位应该都清楚，不能在谷歌搜索中出现就等于从互联网上销声匿迹。我们当时别无选择。”

    据斯托普曼称，联邦贸易委员会（FTC）宣布对谷歌展开反垄断调查，州首席检察官开始关注这个问题，而且参议院反垄断委员会发起了这次听证会之后，谷歌的立场才有所软化。

    译者：清远

    As feared, the Senate hearings Wednesday on "The Power of Google: Serving Customers or Threatening Competition?" barely scratched the surface.

    What Google (GOOG) did to Apple (AAPL) -- copying Apple's touchscreen operating system and offering it to Apple's competitors for free -- never came up. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) used much of their time to suck up to Google chairman Eric Schmidt, practically begging him to bring Google's fiber-to-the-home experiment to their states.

    But for viewers who stuck around for the full three-hour hearing (available on C-Span here), one message was clear: As Google has grown to achieve monopoly-scale control of Internet search, its mission has changed. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman put it most succinctly:

    "Let's be clear. Google is no longer in the business of sending users to the best sources of information on the Web. It now hopes to become a destination site itself for one vertical market after another, including news, shopping, travel, and now, local business reviews. It would be one thing if these efforts were conducted on a level playing field, but the reality is they're not."

    For me, the testimony of Yelp's Stoppelman and Nextag CEO Jeff Katz was the most compelling, because it came from Web-based entrepreneurs who know all too well how the game is played.

    Here's the crux of the story Stoppelman told the senators:

    "The experience in my industry is telling. Google forces review websites to provide their content for free to benefit Google's own competing product, not consumers. Google then gives its own product preferential treatment in Google search results.

    "Google first began taking our content without permission a year ago. Despite public and private protests, Google gave the ultimatum that only a monopolist can give: In order to appear in Web search, you must allow us to use your content to compete against you. As everyone in this room knows, not being in Google is equivalent to not existing on the Internet. We had no choice."

    Google softened its stance, according to Stoppelman, only after the FTC announced an antitrust investigation, the states' attorneys general took notice, and the Senate antitrust committee proposed this hearing.