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  3. On Wednesday, the European Union brought down an antitrust fine of 4.34 billion euros — or about $5.06 billion — against Google,

On Wednesday, the European Union brought down an antitrust fine of 4.34 billion euros — or about $5.06 billion — against Google,

admin2019-05-04  87
问题    On Wednesday, the European Union brought down an antitrust fine of 4.34 billion euros — or about $5.06 billion — against Google, for anticompetitive practices related to Android, the company’s mobile operating system. It’s the European Commission’s largest antitrust fine ever, topping the previous record of 2.42 billion euros — which was also levied against Google, just last year, for abuses of its search-engine dominance.
   At issue is how Google has used the proliferation of Android, which runs on more than 80 percent of smartphones worldwide, to entrench its other services, especially Search. In exchange for receiving Android for free, Google demands that phone makers preinstall Google apps and services, such as Search and the Chrome browser. The European Commission’s regulators contend that this default stifles competing apps and services.
   Furthermore, according to the European Commission’s decision, Google has prevented phone manufacturers from installing alternate builds of Android. Android is an open-source operating system, meaning that others can make their own, customized versions of it (Fire OS, used on Amazon’s devices, is one example). If manufacturers can’t actually use different versions of Android, then the software’s open-source status doesn’t actually help it increase competition and consumer choice.
   "It’s a very serious illegal behavior," Margrethe Vestager, the European commissioner for competition, said in a press conference announcing the decision. But a big question remains: What does the decision mean for Google and other big tech companies? This might be the tip of the iceberg for global technology regulation, for which Europe has been doing the work the United States can’t, or won’t, pursue.
   Still, the amount is a drop in the bucket when compared to Alphabet’s overall financial picture. While the company also took a $9.9 billion one-time charge related to changes in U.S. tax law, Google’s success is only growing — its net revenues climbed by 20 percent over 2016, and almost that much over the year prior. And like other big tech companies, Google is sitting on huge piles of cash: about $102 billion, of which $62.8 billion is foreign held. That makes the possible $8 billion from the two antitrust fines — Google appealed the first decision, and indicated its intention to appeal the new one, too — more of an inconvenience than an existential crisis. Alphabet’s shares traded only slightly lower following the announcement of the EU fine, suggesting that investors weren’t terribly concerned about the matter, at least for now.
The word "proliferation" (Para. 2) is closest in meaning to______.
选项 A、popularity
B、recession
C、application
D、failure
答案A
解析 题干问：与单词“proliferation”最接近的意思是______。可定位到第二段第一句，该句中指出安卓系统占据全球智能手机的80％以上(which runs on more than 80 percent of smartphones worldwide)，可推断出安卓系统很流行，proliferation与之对应，所以选项[A]正确。
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