Given all these hurdles, will break-ups ever happen? Sector-wide divestitures seem unlikely, but even Makan Delrahim, head of the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, said on October 22nd that they are “perfectly on the table”. Amazon looks vulnerable. It is disrupting many industries and creating many enemies. A line-of-business prohibition seems a relatively easy sell politically. The most likely victim is Facebook. Privacy scandals and its role in distributing misinformation have made the firm a target for both Democrats and Republicans.
考慮到所有這些障礙，分裂還會發生嗎？全行業范圍內的資產剝離似乎不太可能，但就連美國司法部反壟斷部門的負責人馬坎•德爾拉希姆也在10月22日表示，“完全可以考慮”。亞馬遜看上去相當脆弱。它擾亂了許多行業，樹敵眾多。在政治上，禁止某些行業似乎相對容易。最有可能的受害者是Facebook。隱私丑聞和它在傳播錯誤信息方面的角色使該公司成為民主黨和共和黨的攻擊目標。
The case against Facebook is relatively easy to make. Scott Hemphill and Tim Wu, two legal scholars based in New York, have already started advancing it. Backed up by Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook now turned critic of the firm, they have been giving presentations to regulators explaining that “available evidence indicates that as of 2010, Facebook launched a programme of serial defensive acquisitions in order to maintain its dominance.”
針對Facebook的案例相對容易處理。斯科特•亨菲爾和蒂姆•吳是紐約的兩名法律學者，他們已經開始推進這一計劃。在Facebook聯合創始人克里斯•休斯的支持下，他們向監管機構提交了報告，解釋稱“現有證據表明，自2010年起，Facebook啟動了一系列防御性收購計劃，以保持其主導地位。”
Legal arguments notwithstanding, it will be hard to unscramble the eggs. WhatsApp is still a separate entity but Instagram is not. It uses the same advertising platform as Facebook’s social network. And the firm is busy tying its biggest services together even more tightly by merging their address books. Facebook subscribers will at some point be able to send messages on WhatsApp. The goal, the firm says, is to make life easier for users. Critics argue that the aim is to make divestiture more difficult. To avoid “irreparable harm”, Messrs Hemphill and Wu call on regulators to ask for a preliminary injunction that would put an end to the integration work.
盡管存在法律上的爭議，但要解讀這些雞蛋是很困難的。WhatsApp仍然是一個獨立的實體，但Instagram不是。它使用與Facebook的社交網絡相同的廣告平臺。該公司正忙著通過合并他們的地址簿將其最大的服務更緊密地捆綁在一起。Facebook的用戶有朝一日將能夠在WhatsApp上發送信息。該公司表示，其目標是讓用戶的生活更輕松。批評者認為，這樣做的目的是讓資產剝離變得更加困難。為了避免“不可挽回的傷害”，亨菲爾和吳呼吁監管機構申請初步禁令，終止整合工作。
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s boss, knows that he has a target on his back. If Ms Warren were elected president, he recently told staff, “then I would bet that we will have a legal challenge.” He would also bet that he would win, he added. Mr Zuckerberg may want to read up on the history of Standard Oil. Rockefeller thought so too— until it was too late.
Facebook的老板馬克·扎克伯格知道自己背后有目標。他最近告訴員工，如果沃倫當選總統，“那么我敢打賭，我們將面臨法律挑戰。” 他還說，他還會賭自己會贏。扎克伯格可能想了解一下標準石油公司的歷史。洛克菲勒也這么認為，但為時已晚。
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