Just a few years ago, a crackdown in the US to curb the might of America's tech giants seemed at hand.

就在幾年前，美國還在為遏制美國科技巨頭的勢頭而對其進(jìn)行打壓。

Bosses from Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook had been hauled before Congress and President Joe Biden was putting in place a slew of officials known for their tough-on-tech views.

蘋果、亞馬遜、谷歌和臉書的老板們已經(jīng)被傳喚至國會，同時(shí)，喬·拜登總統(tǒng)正在任命一系列對科技采取強(qiáng)硬態(tài)度的官員。

But efforts by Congress to write new rules tackling issues such as privacy and disinformation are all but dead, and in the courts tech firms have won a series of high-profile victories in cases challenging their responsibility for content on their platforms and their right to buy up other firms.

On Tuesday, the next legal battle will begin - a high-stakes trial that pits the government against Google.

然而國會針對隱私和虛假信息等行為撰寫解決新規(guī)的嘗試已經(jīng)基本宣告失敗。在法庭中，科技公司面對挑戰(zhàn)其平臺內(nèi)容責(zé)任和收購其他公司權(quán)利的指控，已經(jīng)高調(diào)獲得了一系列勝利。

周二，下一場法律之戰(zhàn)將會開始——一場政府與Google針鋒相對的高風(fēng)險(xiǎn)審訊。

The company is accused of unfairly cementing its position as the world's go-to search engine by paying billions of dollars to phone-makers like Apple and web browsers like Mozilla to be installed as the default option.

Prosecutors contend the deals gave Google - which handles some 90% of global search queries - such a data advantage that it blocked rivals from emerging and violated US competition laws.

谷歌公司被指控通過向蘋果等手機(jī)制造商和Mozilla等網(wǎng)頁瀏覽器開發(fā)者賄賂成百億美元的方式使受賄方將谷歌設(shè)置成默認(rèn)瀏覽器，從而不正當(dāng)鞏固其作為世界最大搜索引擎的地位。

檢察官表明主張，這類交易讓谷歌——它承擔(dān)了國際上大約90%的網(wǎng)絡(luò)搜索業(yè)務(wù)——具有龐大的數(shù)據(jù)優(yōu)勢，以至于阻礙了其競爭對手的發(fā)展。而該現(xiàn)象違反了美國競爭法。

The suit, filed in the waning days of the Trump administration in 2020, is seen as a landmark case - the most serious challenge to the way the tech industry operates in decades and a key test of whether the US government can prevail in its fight to rein in the industry.

這紙?jiān)V訟起草于特朗普勢力逐漸衰落的2020年。它被視為一場標(biāo)桿案件——這是近幾十年來對科技公司運(yùn)作方式最嚴(yán)重的挑戰(zhàn)，也是對美國政府是否能控制該產(chǎn)業(yè)的關(guān)鍵考驗(yàn)。

Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google's parent company, Alphabet, is expected to testify over the 10-week trial, as are executives from Apple.?

"It's the anti-trust monopolisation trial of a generation," says Bill Baer, visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former government attorney working on competition issues, known as anti-trust in the US.

Google母公司Alphabet的首席執(zhí)行官Sundar Pichai以及蘋果公司的執(zhí)行官都被要求在為時(shí)10周的審理當(dāng)中提供證言。

“這是一個時(shí)代的反壟斷審判?！辈剪斀鹚箤W(xué)會會員、前美國反壟斷（即競爭問題）檢察官Bill Baer說道。

Some analysts say the government has a strong case.

They noted similarities with the 1998 suit against Microsoft, which the courts later found maintained its monopoly over operating systems through illegal, anti-competitive tactics, like pre-installing Internet Explorer.

If the government wins this case, it could mean Google is no longer automatically installed as a search engine - and perhaps other, more significant changes.

部分分析家稱政府碰上了“硬骨頭”。

他們指出了本訴訟與1998年微軟一案的相似性。其中，微軟通過非法反競爭手段在操作系統(tǒng)中實(shí)施壟斷，具體方式包括預(yù)裝IE瀏覽器。

如果政府勝訴，那么Google便不再能被自動安裝為搜索引擎——同時(shí)也有可能導(dǎo)致更近一步的變化。