  The effective action in gauge theories is known to depend on a choice of
gauge fixing conditions. This dependence is such that any change of gauge
conditions is equivalent to a field redefinition in the effective action. In
this sense, the quantum deformation of conformal symmetry in the N = 4 super
Yang-Mills theory, which was computed in 't Hooft gauge in hep-th/9808039 and
hep-th/0203236, is gauge dependent. The deformation is an intrinsic property of
the theory in that it cannot be eliminated by a local choice of gauge (although
we sketch a field redefinition induced by a nonlocal gauge which, on the
Coulomb branch of the theory, converts the one-loop quantum-corrected conformal
transformations to the classical ones). We explicitly compute the deformed
conformal symmetry in R_\xi gauge. The conformal transformation law of the
gauge field turns out to be \xi-independent. We construct the scalar field
redefinition which relates the 't Hooft and R_\xi gauge results. A unique
feature of 't Hooft gauge is that it makes it possible to consistently truncate
the one-loop conformal deformation to the terms of first order in derivatives
of the fields such that the corresponding transformations form a field
realization of the conformal algebra.
