【英语科技】谷歌有权搜索隐私吗？

Google shows no signs of relenting in its effort to take over the world - sorry, to "organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Last week, it promised to bid $4.6bn (£2.2bn) or more to run a mobile phone service in the US if the auction is conducted in the way that it wants. It also missed analysts' expectations for its second-quarter earnings because it was in so much of a rush to employ people that it hired more than it intended.

Eric Schmidt, its chief executive, made clear at Allen and Company's Sun Valley conference for media and technology executives 10 days ago that resistance to Google is useless. He dismissed the refusal of social networks such as Facebook to let search engines scan their content as a "transient" phase. He also took a potshot at Viacom, which sued Google over its YouTube video-hosting site, suggesting that the media group is simply an outfit run by lawyers.

Comments such as these make me worry that Mr Schmidt, who used to be a mild-mannered and open-minded soul, is becoming too big for his boots. The thing that unites these two remarks is the disdain they imply for anyone wanting to hide details of their private lives, or protect their intellectual property, from Google's algorithms. They suggest that Google will eventually be able to publish all the data it wants and be justified in so doing. Neither claim is true.

Taking privacy first, young people are more comfortable than previous generations about giving out personal details to all-comers by posting gossip and photos on blogs and social networking sites. That may mark a sea change in social attitudes but it could equally be, pace Mr Schmidt, transient. It will only take a few job rejections or disciplinary actions by employers and universities (Oxford is already trawling for miscreants on Facebook) for privacy to regain its former cachet.

While it is useful for such organisations, and for the nosy, to have the lives of others searchable, it is not always useful for those whose lives are searched. One of Facebook's appeals is that the site has privacy controls that allow users to share information only among their friends or chosen networks. If everyone's entry were made "universally accessible" and showed up on Google searches, Facebook would soon lose its appeal to adult users.

Google's fight with Viacom over breach of copyright on YouTube is analogous: YouTube wants to exploit something to which Viacom holds rights - video clips of programmes such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report - for its own benefit. It hopes to strike deals with companies such as Viacom to display such clips and share the resulting advertising revenue, just as it has already made deals with music companies including Warner and Universal.

Until then, YouTube plays cat and mouse with Viacom over the illegal posting of video clips on YouTube. It warns its users not to upload other people's copyrighted content but has not put in place a filtering mechanism to identify and block pirated clips, as it has done with music owned by companies with which it has struck deals. Instead, it asks television and film companies to monitor the site and point out copyright-infringing clips, at which point it is willing to take these clips down.

This state of affairs suits YouTube (and, since Google acquired YouTube for $1.65bn last year, Mr Schmidt). Viacom has to take the time and the trouble to monitor YouTube; illegal clips stay up on YouTube until Viacom serves it with a take-down notice. It is impossible to identify how many video clips on YouTube are amateur and how many are professional but its 60 per cent of the US video-sharing market clearly owes much to copyright foot-dragging.

YouTube's defence, which will be familiar to those with teenagers, is that it can't do much about copyright infringement and, anyway, it doesn't have to. It says that automatic filtering of videos is very hard to do; it is now testing a system with companies including Walt Disney but does not know when it will be ready to launch. Meanwhile, it insists that it is not required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US, or by European law, to block every breach of copyright.

I doubt whether Google is on such safe legal ground as Mr Schmidt asserts. Congress passed the relevant clauses of the DMCA to protect internet service providers and others from being held liable for breach of copyright by their users. But YouTube is not a neutral party to copyright infringement in the way that ISPs are: its business model is not merely to provide bandwidth but to encourage users to upload and share videos, many of which it knows quite well belong to other people.

As far as ethics go, it is definitely on shaky ground. If you were having a party in your house and, when your neighbour came around to complain about the noise, you said "sorry" and turned down the volume, only to allow a guest to raise it again five minutes later, you would obviously be in the wrong. The fact that you might have done enough to escape prosecution would not mean that you were behaving fairly.

Google's motto is "Don't be evil", but it should meet higher standards. Mr Schmidt can muse about the digital future and ridicule Viacom for being run by lawyers all that he likes. The fact remains that he wants to profit from the private lives and intellectual property of others without obtaining their permission first.

Never mind about not being evil, Mr Schmidt; don't be anti-social.

谷歌(Google)征服世界的努力没有任何收敛迹象——对不起，应该是“组织全球信息，并使其普及、有用”。最近，该公司承诺，如果拍卖方式符合它的要求，它将投入至少46亿美元竞拍一家手机服务运营商。另外，因为它太急于招聘员工，导致招聘数量超过计划，结果是今年第二季度收益没能达到分析师的预期。十几天前，在太阳谷出席艾伦公司(Allen and Company)举办的媒体与科技管理人员研讨会时，谷歌首席执行官埃里克•施密特(Eric Schmidt)明确表示，抵制谷歌是无用的。他驳斥了Facebook这类社交网络拒绝让搜索引擎搜索其内容的做法，形容这是“短暂”现象。他还抨击了维亚康姆(Viacom)，形容该媒体集团是一个由律师操控的机构。维亚康姆曾就谷歌的视频网站YouTube状告谷歌。

这样的评论让我对施密特感到担忧。他曾是一个态度温和、思想开放的人，现在却变得越来越自大。这两个评论的一个共同点是一种轻蔑，其对象是任何在谷歌的搜索算法面前想要隐藏私生活信息和保护知识产权的人。这些话暗示，谷歌总有一天能将所有它想发布的信息公之于众，而且认为这样做完全合理。这两点都不正确。

首先谈谈个人隐私。比起年长者，年轻人更能接受公布个人信息，例如在博客和社交网站上闲谈和发布照片。这可能标志着社会看法的重大转变，但也完全可能——借施密特所言——是短暂现象。只需几次应聘被拒，或受到雇主与大学的纪律处分（牛津已经开始在Facebook上搜寻有关不良纪录），个人隐私就将重新赢得重视。

虽然对于这些组织和那些好管闲事的人而言，能在网上搜到他人的生活是有用的，但对于那些自己的生活被人搜索的人来说，就不是这样了。Facebook的一个诱人之处就在于该网站有个人隐私控制政策，可以使用户只和朋友或自己选择的社交圈子分享信息。如果每个人的信息都完全开放，并显示在谷歌搜索结果里，Facebook将很快失去对成年用户的吸引力。

谷歌和维亚康姆就YouTube网站侵犯版权的争端也有类似之处：YouTube想利用维亚康姆拥有版权的一些东西——如《The Daily Show》和《The Colbert Report》的电视节目视频片段。YouTube希望能和维亚康姆达成协议，分享这些片段所带来的广告收益，就像它与华纳唱片(Warner)和环球唱片(Universal)等唱片公司所达成的协议一样。

在双方达成协议之前，YouTube和维亚康姆就该网站上的侵权视频片段玩起了猫捉老鼠的游戏。YouTube警告用户不要上传他人有版权保护的内容，但并没有设置一个过滤系统，来指认并拦截盗版视频片段。（但它有一个类似的系统，来保护与其签署协议的唱片公司的音乐。）相反，YouTube要求电视台和电影公司监控该网站，并指认侵权片断，然后才会应要求撤下这些片段。

现状对YouTube没什么不好（自谷歌去年以16.5亿元收购YouTube后，对施密特也没什么不好）。维亚康姆花了时间和精力来监控YouTube，而在维亚康姆提出撤销通知前，侵权片断仍可以留在上面。要想区分YouTube上的视频片断有多少是业余的、有多少是专业的，根本不可能，但YouTube占有美国60%的视频共享市场，显然要归功于它在版权保护方面的拖延。

YouTube辩称，它拿侵权行为没辙，也没有大动干戈的必要。家里有孩子的人对此应该觉得耳熟。YouTube说视频自动过滤非常困难；该网站正和包括迪斯尼(Walt Disney)在内的一些公司测试一套系统，但不知道何时可以正式投入使用。与此同时，YouTube坚称美国《数字千禧年著作权法》(Digital Millennium Copyright Act)或欧洲法律并不要求拦截每一个侵权行为。

我怀疑，谷歌是否像施密特所说的那样，在法律上处于无懈可击的地位。美国国会通过《数字千禧年著作权法》的相关条款，来保护互联网服务供应商和其它企业，使其不会因用户的侵权行为而承担法律责任。但在侵犯版权问题上，YouTube并不像互联网服务供应商那样处于中立地位，其商业模式并不仅仅是提供带宽，而是鼓励用户上传和分享视频，而其中很多东西是属于其他人的，这一点，YouTube心知肚明。

在道德方面，YouTube是绝对站不住脚的。如果你在自己家中搞派对，当邻居上门抱怨噪音过大之后，你说了声“对不起”并调低了音量，但五分钟之后又再度允许一个客人调高音量，那你显然是不对的。你的所作所为也许能够逃避法律制裁，并不意味着你做得对。

谷歌的信条是“不要作恶”(Don't Be Evil)，但它应该达到更高的标准。施密特可以随自己的喜好去幻想数字化的未来，并嘲讽维亚康姆是个律师控制的机构。但事实依然是，他想在没有事先获得许可的情况下，从他人的私人生活和知识产权中获利。

且不提不要作恶，施密特；别反社会。

译者／李碧波