歐盟不應該調查谷歌 Europe should forget Google and investigate its own shortcomings

Imagine if, over the next 60 days, the European Commission staged a series of press conferences and bombarded journalists with a battery of announcements of pocket-sized investigations into the condition of the continent’s technology industry.

想象一下，如果歐盟委員會(European Commission)在今後60天裏召開一系列記者招待會，宣佈對歐洲科技行業展開一連串袖珍調查。

One investigation might delve into the rate at which PhDs are granted to students of science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects at Europe’s 20 leading universities. This might contain an appendix showing the percentage of Nobel Prizes given to people born and resident in Europe over the past 100 years.

一項調查可能是研究歐洲20所領先大學裏的科學、技術、工程和數學專業的學生被授予博士學位的比例。這可能包括一個附錄，顯示過去100年出生並居住在歐洲的諾貝爾獎得主百分比。

Another inquiry might examine the state of science education in high schools across the EU and how this compares to countries such as China, Singapore, Israel, India and the US. An appendix of this report might summarise the number of European high school students and college graduates that have elected to study in, or emigrate to, the US.

另一項調查可能是考察整個歐盟的高中的理科教育狀況，並在這方面與中國、新加坡、以色列、印度和美國等國進行對比。該報告的附錄可能概述選擇去美國留學（或者移民美國）的歐盟高中生和大學畢業生的人數。

Other lawyers and social scientists on the vast EU payroll might be dispatched to the patent filing libraries to see how the rate of European invention in critical fields has kept track with what has occurred in China and the US since 1990. Then, assuming there are still lawyers available — not an insurmountable challenge in Brussels — another taxpayer-financed squadron could be sent to examine why the rate of formation of technology companies in Europe trails that in other countries.

歐盟僱用的龐大律師和社會科學家隊伍的其他成員，可能被派到專利庫，去查看自1990年以來歐洲在關鍵領域的發明速度與中國和美國相比表現如何。接下來，假如還有律師閒着——在布魯塞爾這不是一個不可逾越的挑戰——另一個納稅人資助的團隊可能被派去考察歐洲科技公司的形成速度爲何落在其他國家後面。

Instead, the commission has chosen to launch a new investigation into one of its bête-noires — Google. This new witch-hunt, seeking to uncover skulduggery and anti-competitive practices in the way that Google has licensed its Android operating system, is in addition to a separate Commission probe into the company’s search business. Add to this the EU probes into the privacy policies and tax payments of US technology companies, and the chief executives of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Netflix and Qualcomm — six of the greatest businesses built over the past 30 years — must be thinking that, within Europe, no success goes unpunished.

相反，歐盟委員會偏偏選擇對其看不慣的一家企業——谷歌(Google)發起新的調查。最新的“獵巫”行動旨在發現谷歌在授權使用Android操作系統上的欺詐和壟斷行爲，此前歐盟委員會還對谷歌搜索業務展開調查。除此之外，歐盟還對美國科技公司的隱私政策和納稅行爲展開調查，亞馬遜(Amazon)、蘋果(Apple)、Facebook、谷歌、Netflix和高通(Qualcomm)——過去30年打造起來的最偉大企業中的6家——的首席執行官們必定認爲，歐洲是一個懲罰成功的地方。

This same sentiment seems to be spreading to European boardrooms. Recently, the founders of Spotify, the Stockholm-based music-streaming service that has been engaged in a tooth-and-nail fight with some of the largest US technology companies, did the unthinkable. They voiced a distinctly American viewpoint by castigating Swedish politicians for the conditions they have to battle in their homeland. These included the acute housing shortage in Stockholm, the manner in which gains from stock options are taxed and the shortcomings of technical education — particularly for girls and young women. Little wonder that they threatened to move much of their company — lock, stock and smoked herring — to more hospitable climes.

這種情緒似乎正蔓延至歐洲企業的董事會。最近，總部位於斯德哥爾摩的音樂流媒體服務公司、一直在全力對抗美國一些大型科技公司Spotify的創始人做了一件不可思議的事情。他們表達了典型的美國式觀點：針對他們不得不應對的國內艱難條件指責瑞典政客。這些條件包括斯德哥爾摩住房嚴重匱乏，來自股票期權的收益被徵稅的方式，以及技術教育的不足之處（尤其是對女孩和年輕女性而言）。難怪他們威脅要將公司整個搬到營商環境更好的地區。

The commission might find some solace in an odd place — its own investigation of Microsoft which started in 2000 and extended for more than a decade. The accusations against Microsoft were every bit as pointed as the charges now levelled at Google. Yet consider what’s happened since. The EU filed its charges against the leader of the personal computer industry before Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat or Skype were even formed and at a time that Google was barely a year old. However, the inventiveness of these companies that had a much greater effect on Microsoft’s apparent ironclad lock on the technology industry than any set of mandarins infusing legal charges with a political marinade.

歐盟委員會可能在一個詭異的地方找到一些慰藉——當年它對微軟(Microsoft)展開的調查。那項調查始於2000年，持續了十多年。對微軟的指控和現在針對谷歌的指控一樣尖銳。然而想想自那以來發生的情況吧。歐盟對這家個人計算機行業的領軍企業提出指控的時候，Facebook、Instagram、WhatsApp、Snapchat或Skype甚至還未誕生，谷歌成立僅一年。然而，與帶着政治動機提出法律指控的官僚們相比，這些公司的創造力對微軟對科技行業貌似穩固的霸主地位產生了大得多的衝擊。

The commission should examine one other fact. Over the past five years the eight most valuable technology companies developed in Europe have assembled a combined market value of around $32bn. That’s not a figure to be sneezed at any more than the admirable young European technology entrepreneurs who, despite all odds, are more inclined to take a risk than members of their parents’ generation. But EU legislators should be wondering why Europe’s eight most valuable companies are only worth about 10 per cent of Facebook or 6 per cent of Google.

歐盟委員會還應反省另一個事實。過去5年裏，歐洲發展起來的8家最有價值的科技公司的市值總額達到320億美元左右。這個數字不容小覷；歐洲許多年輕科技創業家也值得欽佩——儘管面臨重重困難，他們仍比父輩中的某些成員更願意冒險。但歐盟立法者應該納悶的是，爲何歐盟8家最有價值的公司的總市值只有Facebook的10%，或者谷歌的6%。

There’s nothing new about this strain of anti-Americanism running rampant in Brussels. Some of its intellectual roots stretch back 50 years to Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, the French publisher and journalist, who tried to galvanise Europeans into countering the threat from across the Atlantic with the publication, in 1967, of The American Challenge. Its echoes can be heard in this week’s press conferences in Brussels. Forget the fact that American ingenuity and daring has brought to hundreds of millions of Europeans phones cheaper and more powerful than the supercomputers of the 1970s, thousands of films and TV shows that can be streamed at the touch of a button, free text-messaging services, books that are delivered overnight and thousands of comfortable cars that can be summoned at a moment’s notice.

布魯塞爾反美情緒高漲並不是什麼新鮮事。這其中的一些理論淵源可以追溯至50年前的法國出版人和記者讓-雅克•塞爾旺-施賴伯(Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber)，他在1967年出版了《美國的挑戰》(The American Challenge)，試圖激勵歐洲人反制大西洋對岸的威脅。該書的回聲在布魯塞爾最近的記者會上可以聽到。忘掉如下事實吧：美國人的智慧和膽識讓數億歐洲人的手機比上世紀70年代的超級電腦更便宜更強大、點擊一下就可以觀看數千部電影和電視劇、免費的文字聊天服務、次日就能送上門的圖書，以及很快就能叫到的舒適汽車。

Rather than pointing across the Atlantic and seeking scapegoats, the Commissioners who have just launched another fusillade against one of their favourite American bogeymen may want to start a series of investigations into Europe’s own shortcomings. This may be a more fruitful exercise than reigniting the spent flames of the 1960s.

與其指責大西洋對岸和尋找替罪羊，剛剛再次炮轟他們最愛的美國靶子的歐盟委員會，不如對歐洲本身的不足之處展開一系列調查。相比重新點燃上世紀60年代的餘燼，這麼做可能更有成效。