谷歌CEO为垄断案出庭作证

All right. We're a couple of months into a huge and complicated monopoly trial against Google.

好，针对谷歌的一场巨大而复杂的垄断审判已经进行了数月时间了。

Yeah, the Justice Department has laid out its case. Now it's Google's turn. One of the first witnesses it called was its CEO.

是的，司法部已经陈述了辩词，现在轮到谷歌了。传唤的第一批证人之一是谷歌的首席执行官。

NPR's tech correspondent Dara Kerr was in the courtroom. Dara, so what did the Google CEO say?

NPR科技记者达拉·科尔在法庭上带来报道。达拉，谷歌的首席执行官怎么说?

Hello. So Sundar Pichai has been at Google for nearly 20 years, and now he's the CEO of both Google and its parent company, Alphabet.

你好。桑达尔·皮查伊在谷歌工作了近20年，现在他是谷歌以及谷歌母公司Alphabet的首席执行官。

He has a long history working with Google's search engine business, which was the meat of his testimony.

他对谷歌的搜索引擎业务有很长的工作经验，这是他证词的核心。

What we've learned over the course of the trial is that Google has made deals with all sorts of companies to ensure that its search engine is the default on computers and phones.

我们在审判过程中了解到，谷歌与各种类型的公司都达成了确保其搜索引擎是电脑和手机的默认设置的协议。

In his testimony, Pichai said this is critical for the company business.

皮查伊在证词中表示，这对公司业务至关重要。

He said Google realized early on how important search is to bringing people online and increasing people's online activity.

他表示，谷歌很早就意识到搜索对于保持人们在线、增加人们的在线活跃度有多么重要。

Of course, with more people online using Google Search, the company makes more money.

当然，随着网民使用谷歌搜索越来越多，谷歌赚的钱也越来越多。

So the government says the way Google does that is an abuse of its power as a monopoly.

政府认为谷歌这样做是在滥用其垄断权力。

Google has around 90% share of the search market.

谷歌占有约90%的搜索市场份额。

So how does it do that? How does it have such dominance in that market?

谷歌是怎么做到的呢? 谷歌是如何在这个市场上占据主导地位的呢?

What's been really remarkable with this trial is hearing about how all of these massively powerful companies do business.

这次审判真正值得注意的是，我们得知了所有这些强大的公司是如何做生意的。

At the center of this case are these deals where Google pays billions of dollars a year to device-makers and web browser companies.

本案的核心是这些协议--在这些协议中，谷歌每年会向设备制造商和网络浏览器公司支付数十亿美元。

What we learned last week during trial - and it came up again yesterday - is that in 2021, Google paid $26 billion to enter these deals.

我们上周在庭审期间了解到的情况是--昨天，这一消息再次出现--2021年，谷歌为达成这些协议支付了260亿美元。

Pichai said the central goal with these deals is to make Google's service better for users.

皮查伊说，这些协议的核心目标是让谷歌为用户提供更好的服务。

During his testimony, he said, quote, "we want to make it very, very seamless and easy to use our services."

皮查伊在证词中说：“我们希望能让用户流畅自如地使用我们的服务。”

But the Justice Department says the deals can actually degrade the search experience for people.

但司法部表示，这些协议实际上会降低人们的搜索体验。

Why does the government say that what Google is doing is illegal?

为什么政府说谷歌的行为是非法的？

The Justice Department alleges that because Google dominates the market and pays to stay there, other companies can't come in and compete. They're basically frozen out.

司法部指控说，由于谷歌主导了搜索市场，并为留在那里花了钱，其他公司无法进入市场、无法参与竞争。这些公司基本上都遭到了排挤。

Most people don't even know they're being directed to Google's search engine when they type something in their iPhone or Android phone.

当用户在苹果或安卓手机上输入一些东西时，大多数人甚至不知道他们被定向到了谷歌的搜索引擎。

The government also says that when a company gets as big as Google and becomes a monopoly, it's no longer forced to innovate.

政府还表示，当一家公司发展到像谷歌一样大并成为垄断企业时，它不再被迫进行创新。

So what that means for consumers is we're stuck with whatever Google creates.

这对消费者来说意味着，我们被迫接受谷歌创造的任何东西。

During the trial, we've heard testimony from smaller search engines like DuckDuckGo, which have said it's impossible to compete with Google when they have these default agreements.

在审判期间，我们听取了DuckDuckGo等规模较小的搜索引擎公司的证词，这些公司表示，当谷歌拥有这些默认协议时，他们就不可能与之竞争。

So theoretically, there could be a better search engine out there, but we wouldn't know since it's too difficult to enter the market.

从理论上讲，可能会出现更好的搜索引擎，但我们不知道，因为进入这个市场太难了。