Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg beamed into a congressional hearing via video chat today to face 4+ hours of questions about whether they abuse their dominant positions in the market. Spoiler: they said everything’s cool.

苹果公司的蒂姆·库克(Tim Cook)，谷歌的Sundar Pichai，亚马逊的杰夫·贝索斯(Jeff Bezos)和Facebook的马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)今天通过视频聊天进入国会听证会，面临着四个多小时的质疑，他们是否滥用市场支配地位。 剧透：他们说一切都很棒。

By Chloe Albanesius & Michael Kan

通过 克洛伊Albanesius 与 迈克尔侃

The CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook faced the House Judiciary Committee virtually today, where they fielded questions about whether their respective tech companies take advantage of their dominant positions in the market to enhance their bottom lines.

苹果，亚马逊，谷歌和Facebook的首席执行官几乎在今天就面对众议院司法委员会，他们就各自的科技公司是否利用其在市场中的优势地位来提高底线提出了疑问。

Spoiler: They all said they don’t.

剧透：他们都说不。

As you’d expect, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg offered rosy assessments of their platforms during opening statements. But the limited time each member of Congress got to ask questions didn’t allow for much additional explanation from the CEOs, many of whom are used to answering questions with winding speeches full of Silicon Valley platitudes.

如您所料，苹果公司的蒂姆·库克(Tim Cook)，谷歌的Sundar Pichai，亚马逊的杰夫·贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)和Facebook的马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)在开幕词中对他们的平台进行了乐观的评估。 但是，每个国会议员在有限的时间内提出问题，并没有给首席执行官提供更多的解释，他们中的许多人习惯于用充满硅谷陈词滥调的演讲来回答问题。

Members on both sides of the aisle had bones to pick with the CEOs. The Democrats largely focused on the antitrust issues at hand: whether Amazon keeps its third-party sellers on a tight leash; if Google favors its own products in search; whether Facebook’s acquisitions served only to thwart competition; and if Apple’s fabled walled-garden approach persists.

过道两侧的成员都可以与首席执行官们接骨。 民主党人主要集中在手头的反托拉斯问题上：亚马逊是否让其第三方卖家紧紧抓住皮带； 如果Google偏爱自己的搜索产品； Facebook的收购是否仅能阻止竞争？ 如果苹果的寓言式的围墙花园方法仍然存在。

Some Republicans did, too, but a few veered off course to quiz the execs on pet projects: Google allegedly discriminating against conservatives; Google pulling out of the Pentagon’s JEDI project; and why a certain member’s campaign emails keep ending up in his father’s spam folder.

一些共和党人也这样做了，但是有一些人偏离了路线，对宠物项目的高管们进行了测验：据称谷歌歧视保守派。 Google 退出了五角大楼的JEDI项目； 以及为什么某位会员的竞选电子邮件始终以其父亲的垃圾邮件文件夹结尾。

The four-hour-plus hearing covered a lot of ground, and some topics were more interesting than others. Here are some of the highlights.

四小时以上的听证会覆盖了很多领域，有些话题比其他话题更有趣。 这儿是一些精彩片段。

脸书 (Facebook)

Facebook-Instagram：非法合并还是精明的交易？ (Facebook-Instagram: Illegal Merger or a Savvy Dealmaking?)

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) accused Facebook of breaking antitrust laws by acquiring Instagram back in 2012 because it knew Instagram posed a potential threat to its hold over the social media market.

众议员杰里·纳德勒(D-NY)指责Facebook在2012年收购Instagram违反了反托拉斯法，因为它知道Instagram对其社交媒体市场的持有构成了潜在威胁。

“In your own words you bought Instagram to neutralize the competitive threat. This was an illegal merger at the time of the transaction,” Nadler claimed, citing internal documents provided by Facebook. “Why should Instagram not be broken off into a separate company?”

“用您自己的话说，您购买了Instagram以消除竞争威胁。 在交易时，这是非法合并。”纳德勒说，并引用了Facebook提供的内部文件 。 “为什么不应该将Instagram拆分成独立的公司？”

Zuckerberg acknowledged he saw Instagram as a competitor, but only in the mobile-photo sharing space. The FTC also scrutinized and approved the acquisition in 2012. “I think with hindsight, it probably looks obvious that Instagram would’ve reached the scale it has today, but at the time it was far from obvious,” he said, citing other top platforms of the time, like the now-defunct Path.

扎克伯格承认他将Instagram视为竞争对手，但仅限于在移动照片共享领域。 美国联邦贸易委员会(FTC)还在2012年审查并批准了这项收购。“我想事后看来，Instagram显然已经达到了今天的规模，但当时还不很明显，”他援引其他高层的话说。当时的平台，例如现已失效的Path 。

According to Zuckerberg, Instagram’s success is largely due to Facebook’s investment. “I think this has been an American success story,” he added.

根据扎克伯格的说法，Instagram成功很大程度上归功于Facebook的投资。 他补充说：“我认为这是美国的成功故事。”

Nadler disagreed. “Rather than compete with [Instagram], Facebook bought it. This is exactly the type of anticompetitive acquisition that the antitrust laws were designed to prevent. This should have never happened in the first place,” he said.

纳德勒不同意。 “ Facebook没有与[Instagram]竞争，而是收购了它。 这正是反托拉斯法旨在防止的反竞争性收购的类型。 首先，这本来应该从未发生过。”

你在威胁我吗？ (Are You Threatening Me?)

Nadler and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, (D-Washington), both brought up Zuckerberg’s negotiations with Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom ahead of the merger.

在合并之前，纳德勒和众议员普拉米拉·贾亚帕尔(D-Washington)都提出了扎克伯格与Instagram联合创始人凯文·西斯特罗姆(Kevin Systrom)的谈判。

“In a chat you told Mr. Systrom that Facebook ‘was developing our own photo strategy, so how we engage now will also determine how much we are partners versus competitors down the line,’” Rep. Jayapal noted. “Instagram’s founder seemed to think that was a threat. He confided in an investor at the time that he feared you would go into ‘destroy mode’ if he didn’t sell Instagram to you.”

“在聊天中您告诉Systrom先生，Facebook'正在制定我们自己的照片策略，因此我们现在的参与方式也将决定我们到底是合作伙伴还是竞争对手。” Jayapal众议员指出。 “ Instagram创始人似乎认为这是一种威胁。 当时他向一位投资者吐露，他担心如果他不向您出售Instagram，您将进入“破坏模式”。

Zuckerberg denied it was a threat and characterized his email as a negotiating tactic. “I think it was clear this was a space where we were going to compete in, one way or another,” he said.

扎克伯格否认这是一种威胁，并将他的电子邮件描述为一种谈判策略。 他说：“我认为很明显，这是一个我们将以某种方式竞争的空间。”

预防生命危险 (Preventing Imminent Risk of Life)

Twitter was not present at today’s hearing, but its policies came up nonetheless. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, asked Zuckerberg why it had temporarily banned Donald Trump Jr. this week for sharing a COVID-19 conspiracy theory. Zuckerberg noted that it was Twitter, not Facebook, that took action against the president’s son. But Zuckerberg explained why the move was probably the correct one.

Twitter不在今天的听证会上，但其政策仍在提出。 威斯康星州共和党众议员吉姆·森森布伦纳(Jim Sensenbrenner)问扎克伯格，为什么本周因分享COVID-19阴谋论而暂时禁止小唐纳德·特朗普。 扎克伯格指出，对总统的儿子采取行动的是Twitter，而不是Facebook。 但是扎克伯格解释了为什么这一举动可能是正确的。

The video shared by Trump, Jr. featured a doctor who said that hydroxychloroquine cures COVID-19, which it does not. So while Facebook allows discussion around trials for drugs or personal experiences with experimental drugs, it does not allow people to definitively state that there is a cure for a disease when there isn’t one, Zuckerberg said.

小特朗普分享的视频中有一位医生说，羟氯喹可以治愈COVID-19，但事实并非如此。 扎克伯格说，因此，尽管Facebook允许围绕药物试验或实验药物的个人经历进行讨论，但不允许人们明确声明如果没有一种疾病，则可以治愈。

“In general…we do not want to be the arbiters of truth,” Zuckerberg continued. But if “someone is going to go out and say that hydroxychloroquine is proven to clear COVID and that statement could lead people to take a drug … we think that we should take that down. That could cause imminent risk of life.”

扎克伯格继续说道：“总的来说，我们不想成为真理的仲裁者。” 但是，如果“某人要出去说羟基氯喹已被证明可以清除COVID，并且这种说法可能导致人们服用药物……我们认为我们应该减少这种情况。” 这可能会导致生命危险。”

Later in the hearing, Pichai agreed with that line of thinking when Rep. Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, asked why the video in question was also removed from YouTube.

在听证会的晚些时候，当佛罗里达共和党众议员格雷格·斯图伯(Greg Steube)询问为何还将有关视频也从YouTube删除时，皮查伊同意了这种思路。

“We believe in freedom of expression and there’s a lot of debate on effective ways to deal with COVID. But during a pandemic, we look to local health authorities [and] the CDC for guidelines around medical misinformation and [how it] might cause harm in the real world,” Pichai said.

“我们相信言论自由，并且在应对COVID的有效方法方面存在很多争论。 但在大流行期间，我们会向地方卫生当局[和] CDC寻求有关医疗错误信息的指导，以及[如何]可能在现实世界中造成伤害，” Pichai说。

亚马孙 (Amazon)

没有一家公司可以主导 (No One Company Should Dominate)

Questions for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos mainly focused on the company’s relationship with third-party sellers. Last year, Amazon’s general counsel told Congress that Amazon does not scrape data from third-party sellers to develop competing products. But in April, the Wall Street Journal reported that it does, in fact, do that.

亚马逊首席执行官杰夫·贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)的问题主要集中在公司与第三方卖家的关系上。 去年，亚马逊的总法律顾问告诉国会 ，亚马逊没有从第三方卖家那里收集数据来开发竞争产品。 但是在四月份，《 华尔街日报》 报道说 ，它确实做到了。

Bezos today acknowledged that there might be some truth to the Journal story, but he wasn’t entirely sure. “We have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private label business, but I can’t guarantee you that that policy has never been violated.”

贝佐斯今天承认《 华尔街日报》的故事可能有些道理，但他不确定。 “我们有一项政策，禁止使用特定于卖家的数据来协助我们的自有品牌业务，但我不能保证您从未违反该政策。”

Amazon continues “to look into that very carefully,” Bezos continued. “I’m not yet satisfied that we’ve gotten to the bottom of that,” citing the fact that some of the Journal’s sources spoke to the paper anonymously.

亚马逊继续“非常仔细地研究”，贝佐斯继续说道。 “我还不满意我们已经走到了最底层，”引用《 华尔街日报》的某些消息来源与报纸匿名交谈的事实。

Rep. Jayapal, who represents Amazon’s homestate of Washington, argued that such behavior could prevent the next big tech giant from emerging. “The whole goal of this committee is to make sure there are more Amazons [and] Apples and small businesses get to thrive”; no one company should dominate, she said.

代表亚马逊位于华盛顿州的华盛顿州众议员贾亚帕尔(Jayapal)辩称，这种行为可能阻止下一个大型科技巨头的崛起。 “该委员会的总体目标是确保有更多的亚马逊(以及)苹果和小型企业蓬勃发展”； 她说，没有任何一家公司可以称霸。

客户服务噩梦 (Customer Service Nightmare)

Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Georgia) played testimony from a book seller who claims she was delisted from selling on Amazon without any explanation. “As we grew, we were shrinking Amazon’s market share in the textbooks category,” the unnamed seller said. “So now in retaliation, Amazon started restricting us from selling.” According to McBath, the seller messaged Amazon over 500 times, but never got a response.

众议员露西·麦克巴斯(Lucy McBath)(佐治亚州)出示了书商的证词，该书商声称她已在亚马逊上被除名，没有任何解释。 这位不愿透露姓名的卖家说：“随着我们的成长，我们正在缩小亚马逊在教科书类别中的市场份额。” “因此，现在为了报复，亚马逊开始限制我们出售产品。” 根据麦克巴斯的说法，卖家向亚马逊发送了超过500次信息，但从未得到回应。

Bezos said: “I don’t even understand what’s going on in that anecdote, because we love for third-party sellers to sell books.”

贝索斯说：“我什至不了解那件事的真相，因为我们喜欢第三方卖家出售书籍。”

However, McBath said numerous third-party merchants have told the Congressional committee about similar instances involving Amazon undermining their businesses. “There are more sellers who have exhausted all of their options before finally reaching out to you as last resort. But they are still waiting for your response,” she said.

但是，麦克巴斯说，许多第三方商家已经向国会委员会通报了涉及亚马逊破坏其业务的类似案例。 “有更多的卖家在最终寻求帮助之前已经用尽了所有选择。 但他们仍在等待您的回应，”她说。

“I do not think systematically that’s what’s going on,” Bezos responded, arguing that even allowing third parties on Amazon.com was a “very controversial decision” 20 years ago. “We did that because we were convinced it would be better for the consumer. And I think we were right.

贝佐斯回应说：“我没有系统地认为这是正在发生的事情。”他说，即使允许第三方在Amazon.com上使用，也是20年前的“非常有争议的决定”。 “我们这样做是因为我们坚信这对消费者会更好。 我认为我们是对的。

However, Rep. David Cicilline, D-Rhode Island, claimed the company was creating an “inherent conflict of interest” with its third-party merchants, especially since “Amazon can set the rules of the game.”

但是，罗德岛州众议员David Cicilline声称该公司正在与其第三方商家建立“内在的利益冲突”，特别是因为“亚马逊可以制定游戏规则。”

“This investigation makes clear that Amazon’s dual role as a platform operator and a competing seller on that platform is fundamentally anti-competitive, and Congress must take action,” Cicilline claimed.

Cicilline声称：“这项调查清楚表明，亚马逊作为平台运营商和该平台上的竞争卖方的双重角色从根本上来说是反竞争的，国会必须采取行动。”

谷歌 (Google)

偷内容 (Stealing Content)

Cicilline quizzed Pichai about why Google was “stealing content” from businesses to bolster its own and only displaying content in search results that’s most profitable for Google. Not surprisingly, Pichai took issue with that characterization, arguing in part that most product searches originate on Amazon, not Google.

Cicilline向Pichai询问了为何Google会“窃取企业的内容”以支持自己的企业，并仅在搜索结果中显示对Google最有利的内容。 毫无疑问，Pichai对该特征表示质疑，部分原因是大多数产品搜索源自亚马逊而非Google。

Pichai’s style, however, did not really lend itself to the rapid-fire nature of today’s hearing, and he didn’t really get to complete many thoughts before time-limited members were forced to move on.

然而，Pichai的风格并没有真正使自己适应当今听证会的迅捷性，并且在时间有限的成员被迫继续前进之前，他并没有真正完成很多想法。

“大技术是为了获得保守派” (‘Big Tech Is Out to Get Conservatives’)

Republicans also took aim at Google, with allegations that it censors conservative viewpoints on Google Search and via YouTube.

共和党人还瞄准了谷歌，指控它审查了谷歌搜索和YouTube上的保守观点。

“I’ll just cut to the chase: Big tech is out to get conservatives,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in his opening statement. He later demanded Google pledge to avoid siding with the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden during the ongoing election.

众议员吉姆·乔丹(R-Ohio)在开幕词中说：“我只会追赶：大技术是为了保守派。” 后来，他要求Google承诺避免在正在进行的选举中与民主党总统候选人乔·拜登站在同一立场。

“Can you assure us today, you are not going to try and silence conservatives?” Jordan asked. Pichai said: “You have my commitment, it’s always been true. And we’ll continue to conduct ourselves in a neutral way.” (After the exchange, Rep. Mary Scanlon, a Pennsylvania Democrat, dismissed Jordan’s line of questioning as “fringe conspiracy theories,” prompting a fiery back and forth between both sides of the aisle.)

“您今天能向我们保证，您不会尝试让保守派沉默吗？” 乔丹问。 皮查伊说：“您有我的承诺，这始终是事实。 我们将继续以中立的方式行事。” (在交换之后，宾夕法尼亚州民主党众议员玛丽·斯坎伦(Mary Scanlon)驳斥了约旦的质疑线，称其为“边缘阴谋论”，这促使过道两旁来回火热。)

中国企业间谍手册 (China’s Corporate Espionage Playbook)

Republicans also quizzed Pichai about why Google was willing to work with China, but not with the Pentagon?

共和党人还向Pichai询问为什么Google愿意与中国合作而不与五角大楼合作？

In 2018, Google pulled out of a US Defense Department project following internal protests from company employees. It later said it would not allow Google AI technology to be used as a weapon or for surveillance and that it would refuse to develop any AI projects that will “cause or are likely to cause overall harm.”

2018年，在公司员工内部抗议之后，谷歌退出了美国国防部的一个项目。 该公司随后表示 ，将不允许将Google AI技术用作武器或监视工具，并将拒绝开发任何“将导致或可能造成整体伤害的” AI项目。

In the same year, however, news emerged that Google was secretly developing a search engine for China that would not only censor content, but also potentially allow government authorities to track people’s website lookups. Google later abandoned the search engine. But today, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colorado) questioned whether the company was following “China’s corporate espionage playbook.

然而，在同年，有消息传出，谷歌正在秘密地为中国开发一个搜索引擎，该引擎不仅可以审查内容，而且还可能允许政府当局跟踪人们对网站的查询。 谷歌后来放弃了搜索引擎。 但是今天，众议员肯·巴克(R-Colorado)质疑该公司是否遵循“中国企业间谍活动手册”。

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said: “First of all we are proud to support the US government,” while citing the company’s recent partnership with the US Defense Department to secure the Pentagon from cyber attacks.

谷歌首席执行官桑达尔·皮查伊(Sundar Pichai)说：“首先，我们为支持美国政府感到自豪”，同时引用谷歌最近与美国国防部的合作关系，以保护五角大楼免受网络攻击。

“We have a very limited presence in China,” Pichai added. “We don’t offer any of our services — Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, etc. — in China.”

Pichai补充说：“我们在中国的业务非常有限。” “我们在中国不提供任何服务-搜索，地图，Gmail，YouTube等。”

苹果 (Apple)

“争取市场份额的街头斗争” (‘A Street Fight for Market Share’)

Apple CEO Tim Cook got off relatively easy during today’s hearing. However, Rep. Henry Johnson (D-Georgia) did grill him about the iOS App Store, the sole way iPhone owners can download mobile apps. (Last month, the European Union launched its own antitrust investigation into the store’s policies.)

在今天的听证会上，苹果公司首席执行官蒂姆·库克(Tim Cook)相对容易下车。 但是，众议员亨利·约翰逊(D-Georgia)确实使他不知道iOS App Store，这是iPhone所有者可以下载移动应用程序的唯一方式。 (上个月，欧盟对商店的政策发起了自己的反托拉斯调查。)

Currently, Apple takes a 30 to 15 percent cut of all in-app purchases on the store. “What’s to stop Apple from increasing its commission to 50 percent?” Johnson asked, to which Cook noted that commissions have never increased in the App Store’s 12-year history.

目前，苹果从商店购买的所有应用程序内购买减少了30％至15％。 “什么阻止了苹果将佣金提高到50％？” 约翰逊问，库克指出，在App Store的12年历史中，佣金从未增加。

“There’s nothing to stop you from doing so, is it?” Johnson then asked.

“没有什么可以阻止您这样做的，对吗？” 约翰逊然后问。

“No sir, I disagree strongly with that,” Cook replied. “There’s a competition for developers, just like there’s a competition for customers.” Those same developers can choose to write apps for other platforms, such as Android, Windows, and Xbox. “So we have fierce competition on the developer side, and the customer side, which is essentially so competitive, I would describe it as a street fight for market share in the smartphone business,” Cook said.

“不，先生，我对此表示强烈反对。”库克回答。 “开发者之间存在竞争，就像客户之间存在竞争。” 这些相同的开发人员可以选择为其他平台编写应用程序，例如Android，Windows和Xbox。 库克说：“因此，我们在开发商方面和客户方面都存在激烈的竞争，本质上竞争如此激烈，我将其描述为在智能手机业务中争夺市场份额的街头争夺战。”

He went on to say that Apple never retaliates or bullies iOS developers for complaining about its policies. However, Johnson said the company still holds sole discretion over which apps get allowed on the iOS App Store. “Developers have no choice but to go along with the changes, or they must leave the App Store. That’s an enormous amount of power,” Johnson added.

他继续说，苹果绝不会因抱怨其政策而对任何iOS开发者进行报复或欺凌。 不过，约翰逊表示，对于iOS App Store上允许哪些应用程序，该公司仍然拥有完全的酌处权。 “开发人员别无选择，只能接受更改，否则他们必须离开App Store。 这是巨大的力量，”约翰逊补充说。

下一步是什么？ (What’s Next?)

Rep. Cicilline said House Judiciary will publish a report on the Antitrust Subcommittee’s finding, which will propose solutions. but “this hearing has made one fact clear to me: These companies as they exist today have monopoly power. Some need to be broken up. All need to be properly regulated and held accountable,” he concluded.

众议员Cicilline说，众议院司法机构将就反托拉斯小组委员会的调查结果发表一份报告，该报告将提出解决方案。 但是“这次听证会向我澄清了一个事实：当今存在的这些公司具有垄断权。 一些需要分解。 所有这些都需要得到适当的监管并承担责任。”他总结道。

Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.

最初发布在 https://www.pcmag.com 。