Will America’s government try to break up Google?
Antitrust remedies that target its generative-AI ambitions are more likely
针对其生成人工智能野心的反垄断补救措施更有可能
2024年10月03日 06:15 上午 |旧金山
FOR YEARS shareholders have paid little heed to the thunderbolts hurled at America’s west-coast technology giants by the trustbusting deities of Washington, DC. No longer. Despite expectations of solidly rising profits, the share price of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is wobbling (see chart).
多年来，股东们很少关注华盛顿特区反托拉斯之神对美国西海岸科技巨头的猛烈攻击。不再。尽管预期利润将稳步增长，但谷歌母公司Alphabet 的股价却在摇摆不定（见图表）。
The reasons seem paradoxical. On the one hand, an American judge ruled in August that Google’s search business, source of about 90% of its operating income, was an illegal monopoly. On the other, investors fear that it could suffer unprecedented competition because of generative artificial intelligence (AI). On October 8th the Department of Justice (DoJ) is expected to file proposed remedies that aim to redress the sins of the pastand prevent future abuse in generative AI.
原因似乎很矛盾。一方面，美国法官8月份裁定，谷歌约90%营业收入的搜索业务构成非法垄断。另一方面，投资者担心它可能会因生成人工智能（ AI ）而遭受前所未有的竞争。预计司法部 ( D o J ) 将于 10月 8 日提交拟议的补救措施，旨在纠正过去的罪恶并防止未来生成人工智能的滥用。
The DoJ appears eager to make an example of Google. Jonathan Kanter, the agency’s trustbuster-in-chief, has said the verdict belongs on the “Mount Rushmore” of antitrust cases. Leaks to the media have suggested he could go as far as asking the court to break up Google by separating its search engine from its Chrome browser and Android operating system. That would be America’s biggest anti-monopolistic act since an unsuccessful attempt to carve up Microsoft almost 25 years ago.
司法部似乎急于以谷歌为榜样。该机构的反垄断总负责人乔纳森·坎特(Jonathan Kanter)表示，该判决属于反垄断案件的“拉什莫尔山”。向媒体透露的消息显示，他甚至可以要求法院将谷歌的搜索引擎与其Chrome 浏览器和 Android 操作系统分开，从而分拆谷歌。这将是美国自近 25 年前瓜分微软失败以来最大规模的反垄断行动。
Amit Mehta, the judge handling the case, is likely to have other considerations. A breakup may be too draconian for him. The nub of his ruling was that Google benefited from a monopoly on search and text-based advertisements that it furthered through “exclusionary” distribution deals with companies like Apple; Google’s size alone was not the issue. Moreover, his verdict against Google was based largely around precedents set in the Microsoft trial. The fact that the decision to break up Microsoft was quashed on appeal has been a deterrent to far-reaching “structural”remedies ever since.
审理此案的法官阿米特·梅塔（Amit Mehta）可能还有其他考虑。分手对他来说可能过于严厉。他裁决的核心是，谷歌从搜索和基于文本的广告领域的垄断中受益，并通过与苹果等公司的“排他性”分销协议进一步巩固了这一垄断地位。谷歌的规模本身并不是问题。此外，他对谷歌的判决很大程度上是基于微软审判中的先例。事实上，分拆微软的决定在上诉中被撤销，此后一直阻碍着影响深远的“结构性”补救措施。
Like Mr Kanter, Mr Mehta appears keen to address not just Google’s market distortions of the past but also to consider how they will play out in the generative-AI era. For that, targeted remedies may be more likely. An obvious one would be to ban the payments that Google makes for its place as a default search engine on many devices and carriers, which in 2021 came to $26bn. But that would penalise the recipients of Google’s cash more than Google, even though they were not in the dock.
与坎特一样，梅塔似乎不仅热衷于解决谷歌过去的市场扭曲问题，而且还考虑它们将如何在生成人工智能时代发挥作用。为此，有针对性的补救措施可能更有可能。一个显而易见的办法是禁止谷歌为其作为许多设备和运营商的默认搜索引擎而支付的费用，到 2021 年，这笔费用达到 260 亿美元。但这对谷歌现金接收者的惩罚将比谷歌更大，即使他们不在被告席上。
More likely, Google may be required to continue the payments but without the exclusions. This, says Mark Shmulik of Bernstein, a broker, could help spur competition, especially when it comes to generative AI. It would, for instance, give Apple latitude to direct more searches through OpenAI’s ChatGPT, with which it is shortly due to start an AI partnership called Apple Intelligence. Further helping rivals, Google could be forced to share some data it relies on to make its search business so powerful, including its huge volume of search queries. Google considers such data troves its secret sauce; it will argue that making them publicly available raises privacy and security concerns. But such obligations could be a fillip for firms trying to launch generative-AI capabilities to compete with Google, such as Perplexity.
更有可能的是，谷歌可能会被要求继续付款，但没有排除情况。伯恩斯坦经纪人马克·什穆里克 (Mark Shmulik) 表示，这可能有助于刺激竞争，尤其是在生成人工智能方面。例如，这将使苹果公司可以自由地通过 Open AI的 Chat GPT进行更多搜索，并且很快将与该公司建立名为 Apple Intelligence 的人工智能合作伙伴关系。为了进一步帮助竞争对手，谷歌可能被迫分享一些使其搜索业务如此强大所依赖的数据，包括大量的搜索查询。谷歌认为此类数据是其秘密武器；它会争辩说，将它们公开会引起隐私和安全问题。但这些义务可能会刺激那些试图推出生成式人工智能能力来与谷歌竞争的公司，比如 Perplexity。
Alphabet has vowed to appeal the verdict and the process may drag on for years. In the meantime, the going will be tough. In addition to illegal use of the default payments, the judge found Google guilty of using its monopoly power to push up the price of text advertisements, which could spur a wave of potentially costly lawsuits from advertisers and rivals.
Alphabet 发誓将对判决提出上诉，这一过程可能会持续数年。与此同时，前进的道路将会很艰难。除了非法使用违约金之外，法官还认定谷歌利用其垄断权力推高文字广告价格，这可能会引发广告商和竞争对手发起一波可能代价高昂的诉讼。
All this is occurring while the business model of search is changing profoundly. Generative AI is eroding the power of selling ads based on clicking links. So far, Google’s ad business has withstood the hit. But this is a bad time to be distracted by lengthy legal wrangling. Perhaps better to try to settle fast and move on.
所有这一切都发生在搜索商业模式正在发生深刻变化的同时。生成式人工智能正在削弱基于点击链接销售广告的力量。到目前为止，谷歌的广告业务经受住了打击。但现在不适合因冗长的法律争论而分心。也许最好尝试快速安定下来并继续前进。
