eBay爲谷歌反壟斷辯護提供彈藥

Ebay’s chief executive has added weight to Google’s antitrust defence by saying that the pair are direct competitors in online shopping, echoing the US search group’s claim that Brussels misunderstands how people buy products online.

eBay首席執行官約翰•多納霍(John Donahoe)的言論支持了美國搜索集團谷歌(Google)的反壟斷辯護。他說，eBay與谷歌在網絡購物領域是直接競爭對手，這呼應了谷歌的說法。谷歌曾聲稱，布魯塞爾方面沒有理解人們的在線購物方式。

John Donahoesaid in an interview with the Financial Times that barriers were breaking down between different areas of online commerce. The auction website chief’s comments support arguments already made by Google in its first response to the European Commission’s landmark competition case.

在接受英國《金融時報》採訪時，多納霍表示，不同電商領域之間的壁壘正在打破。該拍賣網站CEO的言論，支持了谷歌首次迴應歐盟委員會(European Commision)反壟斷案時的說法。

Brussels’ complaint, announced this month, focuses on a claim that Google has abused its dominance of web search to squeeze out rival specialist shopping search engines by favouring its own in-house service.

本月，歐盟公佈了對谷歌的起訴，重點是指控谷歌涉嫌濫用在網絡搜索方面的主導地位，通過偏向其旗下服務的方式，將其在購物搜索引擎方面的對手排擠出市場。

Google has responded by saying that European regulators have not recognised how it is dwarfed in online shopping by eBay and Amazon, making questions about how it handles product queries on its own site beside the point.

谷歌對此迴應稱，歐洲監管機構沒有認識到谷歌在網絡購物領域比eBay和亞馬遜(Amazon)遜色許多，以致其對谷歌網站處理商品查詢方式的質疑離題萬里。

Asked if eBay was a direct competitor of Google Shopping, Mr Donahoe said: “Yes . . . We are a strong commerce competitor [of Google’s].”

在被問到eBay是否是谷歌購物(Google Shopping)直接競爭對手時，多納霍表示：“沒錯……我們是（谷歌的）強勁商業對手。”