科技改變生活 大數據的利與弊

Welcome, customers, to this column. I write articles and you subscribe to the FT and tell me how wrong I am (to be fair, some of your are kinder). Now, let us imagine you read this piece, or other FT content, for free on Facebook or Google. It is a far sweeter deal, right? You get something for nothing and Big Data can bask in its own beneficence. Apply that to any amount of diverse content. Rarely in the history of human knowledge have so few offered so much to so many for nothing.

各位看官，歡迎你們閱讀我的專欄。我的任務是寫文章，而你們的任務是訂閱英國《金融時報》，以及指摘我的文字（公平來說，有部分讀者還是很仁慈的）。現在，假設你們是在Facebook或谷歌(Google)上免費看到這篇文章或英國《金融時報》的其他文章。這是筆非常划算的交易，對吧？你免費享受內容，而大數據也可享受行善之樂。這可以發生在任何數量的各種不同內容上。在人類認知史上，鮮有如此少的內容提供者向如此多的人免費提供如此海量信息的情況。

That, at least, is the story most of us have downloaded. In the rare cases where an entity — such as the European Commission, which is probing Google’s alleged abuse of its dominant position — raises objections, the obloquy is instant. Google, the US government and others accuse Brussels of thinly veiled protectionism.

至少，上述情形是我們大多數人都曾免費下載、讀到過的故事。只在極少數情況下，纔會有實體對此提出異議，比如歐盟委員會(European Commission)正在調查谷歌涉嫌濫用市場主導地位，結果立即遭到謾罵。谷歌、美國政府以及其他一些人紛紛指責布魯塞爾方面幾乎不加掩飾的保護主義。

If Europe could innovate like the US, perhaps it would spend less time trying to bring others down. There is a reason Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil”. It invests in ways of bringing ever more knowledge to humankind.

如果歐洲的創新力能像美國一樣，或許會少花點時間去給別人使絆。谷歌的座右銘“不作惡”(Don’t be evil)並非說說而已。在爲人類帶來更多知識方面，谷歌進行了投入。

Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, describes Google as a benign monopoly. If it encountered real competition, its research and development budget would vanish — and with it the self-driving car, wearable computers, “loon balloons” beaming cellular data from the stratosphere and so on. We should appreciate the upside to its dominance. Google’s monopoly returns enable it to fund the equivalent of AT&T’s legendary Bell Labs, or Xerox Park, which made so many breakthroughs. Besides, the data industry’s barriers to entry are low. The disrupters can be disrupted.

貝寶(PayPal)聯合創始人彼得•蒂爾(Peter Thiel)將谷歌描述爲一家善良的壟斷企業。如果它遇到真正的挑戰，它的研發預算，連同它的無人駕駛汽車、可穿戴計算機，以及從平流層發射無線數據的“Loon”熱氣球等科技創新都會化爲泡影。我們應該認識到其市場主導地位的有利一面。正是有了壟斷收益，谷歌才能資助不亞於美國電報電話公司(AT&T)傳奇的貝爾實驗室(Bell Labs)或施樂帕克研究中心(Xerox Park)的實驗室，這些實驗室做出的突破創新數不勝數。而且，數字行業的進入門檻很低，破壞者本身也可能遭到破壞。

But there are other sides to this story. The first is that Google’s chief complainants are US companies. This is not a transatlantic spat. It just so happens that Brussels has a tougher competition regime.

但此事還有其他方面。首先，投訴谷歌的主要是美國企業。這不是一場跨大西洋的口水仗，歐盟委員會之所以會展開調查，只是剛好這裏的競爭制度比較嚴格而已。

Yelp, Microsoft, Expedia and others have complained both to Brussels and Washington’s Federal Trade Commission about Google’s alleged anti-competitive practices. Indeed, in a 2012 report, the FTC’s own staff recommended action on three counts against Google for conduct that had resulted in “real harm to consumers and to innovation”. Google had been presenting content “scraped” from other sites as its own. It had also been privileging its own commercial sites in search results — a clear conflict of interest. However, the FTC’s commissioners rejected their staff’s conclusions. It might have been different had the probe been carried out by the Department of Justice, as was the case with Microsoft, which was penalised on both sides of the Atlantic more than a decade ago.

Yelp、微軟(Microsoft)、Expedia等企業向歐盟委員會和美國聯邦貿易委員會（Federal Trade Commission，簡稱FTC）都提出過投訴，指稱谷歌涉嫌反競爭行爲。事實上，在2012年的一份報告中，FTC內部工作人員建議對谷歌的三項罪名採取行動，因爲其行爲已經“對消費者和創新造成真正傷害”。谷歌此前一直將從其他網站“搜刮”的內容作爲自己的內容呈現。它還在搜索結果中優先呈現自己的商業網站，這明顯存在利益衝突。然而，FTC委員否定了工作人員的結論。如果調查是由美國司法部(Department of Justice)進行的，情況可能會不同，十多年前微軟就接受了美國司法部的調查，並在大西洋兩岸都受到了處罰。

Not even Goldman Sachs can match Google’s lobbying clout nowadays. When the report was leaked to the Wall Street Journal in March, Google cajoled the FTC into distancing itself from its own conclusions.

就連高盛(Goldman Sachs)也比不上谷歌現今的遊說影響力。當FTC對谷歌的調查報告在3月份被泄露給《華爾街日報》(Wall Street Journal)，谷歌勸誘FTC放棄了自己的結論。

The idea that US regulators had in fact agreed with their EU counterparts was too dangerous. Johanna Shelton, Google’s chief lobbyist, has visited the White House more than 100 times . Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman, is closer to President Barack Obama than any other business leader. Google even has its own “data diplomacy” outfit, Google Ideas, which is headed by a former state department official. It combines data initiatives against autocracies with business acumen to open up new markets. What is good for Google is good for America — and the world.

認爲美國監管部門實際上已經與歐盟監管部門達成一致的想法太過危險。谷歌首席遊說官約翰娜•謝爾頓(Johanna Shelton)已經前往白宮逾100次。谷歌董事長埃裏克•施密特(Eric Schmidt)與美國總統巴拉克•奧巴馬(Barack Obama)的關係，比任何其他商業領袖都要緊密。谷歌甚至擁有自己的“數據外交”部門——由美國國務院前官員領導的Google Ideas。它把針對專制主義的數據計劃與商業敏銳性結合起來，打開新的市場。對谷歌有益的東西，對美國乃至整個世界都是有益的。

But there are hidden costs. Ponder how Google and Facebook, are interacting with you. In exchange for free social networking, emails, videos, search, satellite maps and now telephone calls, they are building your profile in ever more granular detail.

但是，這其中還有隱性成本。仔細考慮下谷歌和Facebook是如何與你互動的。它們以免費的社交網絡、電郵、視頻、搜索、衛星地圖、以及眼下的免費電話作爲交換，正在以更加細緻入微的細節來建立你的個人信息。

Without really digesting it, we have made a Faustian bargain. They give us free computing power — beyond our wildest imagination — and we reveal ever more about ourselves. The more Google knows about you, the better it teases out preferences you never realised you had.

未經真正地細細品味，我們已經做了一筆浮士德式的交易。它們給了我們免費的計算能力——超出了我們最瘋狂的想象——而我們則更多地暴露自己。谷歌越瞭解你，它就能越好地梳理出甚至連你自己都從未意識到的偏好。

It is an asymmetric exchange. Big Data has our profiles but few of us know how extensive that is. It is the information equivalent of Walmart. The big box retailer drove countless Mom and Pop stores to the wall by acquiring ever more pricing leverage. The job losses went deep, and some of the victims were customers. The model is self-cannibalising.

這是一筆不對等的交換。大數據擁有我們的信息，而我們幾乎沒人知道其信息量有多廣。它是信息界的沃爾瑪(Walmart)。這家巨型零售商通過獲取越來越大的定價能力，迫使不計其數的夫妻店陷入困境。失業情況加深，一些受害者也是沃爾瑪的顧客。這是自我蠶食型的模式。

Apply the Walmart example to the data industry. We now receive most of our content for free (like Asterix against the Romans, the FT, among others, is holding out). Producers of content are suffering.

把沃爾瑪的例子應用在數據行業。我們如今獲取的絕大多數內容都是免費的（而英國《金融時報》就像對抗羅馬人的高盧傳奇英雄阿斯泰里斯(Asterix)一樣，一直堅持絕不妥協）。而內容的生產者則承受着痛苦。

By the end of this decade, most of the world’s books will have been uploaded to Google’s online library. The company’s sway over our culture and knowledge will be unprecedented. Should we charge Big Data for our personal data? Jeff Hammerbacher, former head of data at Facebook, said: “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.” In a parallel universe, they might be figuring out something more noteworthy. But what they do brings us untold benefits. Evil does not come into it.

在本世紀的第二個10年結束時，世界上的大多數書籍都將已上傳至谷歌的在線圖書館中。該公司對我們的文化與知識的控制將會達到前所未有的水平。我們應該爲個人數據向大數據收費嗎？Facebook前數據主管傑夫•哈默巴赫爾(Jeff Hammerbacher)稱：“我這代人中頭腦最爲出色的人都在考慮如何讓人們點擊廣告。”在另一個平行宇宙中，他們也許正在考慮更有意義的事。但是，他們所做的事帶給了我們數不清的好處。這裏面並不涉及邪惡。

We should nevertheless embrace the bargain with open eyes. We are not Big Data’s customers but its product. As long as we grasp that we users are also being used, let the harvest continue.

話雖如此，我們還是應該睜大眼睛來接受這筆交易。我們並非大數據的客戶，而是其產品。只要我們清楚我們用戶也在被利用着，就讓大數據對我們的“收割”繼續下去吧。