谷歌禍不單行 身陷政治風暴

Google regularly tops the list of companies that students want to work for and, visiting its Silicon Valley campus last week, I could see why. The skies were blue, the temperature was perfect. A group of employees was playing volleyball, while out in the car-park somebody was demonstrating a prototype of a self-driving Google car.

谷歌(Google)經常位列學生希望爲之工作的公司榜首。上週在參觀了谷歌位於硅谷(Silicon Valley)的園區之後，我知道了這其中的原因。天空蔚藍，溫度適宜。一羣谷歌員工打着排球，有人在外面的停車場上展示着谷歌無人駕駛汽車的樣車。

Amid all the fun, Google has emerged as one of the five largest companies in the world, measured by market capitalisation. The largest, Apple, is about 20 minutes drive down the road. Facebook, another giant, is in a nearby suburb.

在享受所有樂趣的同時，谷歌已成爲全球市值最高的五家公司之一。市值最高的蘋果(Apple)距谷歌大概20分鐘的車程。另一個巨頭Facebook，位於附近的一個郊區。

Yet the Silicon Valley idyll is increasingly being disturbed by political storms blowing in from foreign lands. The world’s students may aspire to work for Google. But the world’s politicians seem to want to bring the company to heel.

不過，硅谷的田園生活正日益被異域刮來的政治風暴所攪亂。全世界的學生可能都渴望爲谷歌工作。但是，全世界的政治人士似乎都希望迫使該公司就範。

This month saw the announcement that the European Commission in Brussels is charging Google with violations of competition law. Potentially, the charges threaten the company with a choice between massive fines or costly modifications to its business model.

本月，位於布魯塞爾的歐盟委員會(European Commission)宣佈，將起訴谷歌違反競爭法。起訴可能會致使該公司面臨兩種選擇：鉅額罰款或以高昂代價修改其商業模式。

Europe is not the only source of trouble. Most western multinationals see the Chinese market as crucial to their futures. But Google, along with Facebook andTwitter, is effectively shut out by the country’s “Great Firewall” that blocks internet access.

歐洲並非唯一一個給谷歌製造麻煩的地方。多數西方跨國公司都把中國市場視爲自己未來發展的關鍵。但是，谷歌，還有Facebook和Twitter，實際上均被中國阻斷網絡入口的“長城防火牆”(Great Firewall)拒之門外。

Meanwhile, Silicon Valley’s close relations with the Obama administration have got a lot tenser sinceEdward Snowden’s revelations about the extent of US government snooping on the internet.

與此同時，自愛德華•斯諾登(Edward Snowden)揭露美國政府監視互聯網的程度以來，硅谷與奧巴馬當局的緊密關係已經緊張了許多。

The Snowden affair seems to have galvanised those who believe there is something sinister about the power of Silicon Valley. French critics came up with the acronym, “Gafa” (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon), to encapsulate America’s evil internet empire. As the acronym suggests, it is often Google that is placed first in the firing line. Company executives were aghast when the British government decided to crack down on alleged tax avoidance by multinationals and the new measures were dubbed the “Google tax”.

斯諾登事件似乎鼓舞了那些認爲硅谷有種邪惡力量的人。法國批評人士想到了一個首字母縮寫詞——“Gafa”（谷歌、蘋果、Facebook以及亞馬遜(Amazon)）來概括美國的邪惡互聯網帝國。正如這個詞所暗示的那樣，谷歌常常首當其衝。當英國政府決定打擊跨國公司涉嫌的逃稅行爲，並將新措施戲稱爲“谷歌稅”時，谷歌的高管都震驚了。

One theory is that Google has attracted particular attention simply because it is the most ubiquitous name in Silicon Valley. (Not everybody can afford an iPhone, but Google is free to anyone with internet access). Another argument is that the breadth of Google’s activities means it is upsetting incumbents all over the world — whether it is newspapers angered by Google News; media companies threatened by YouTube (owned by Google); publishers that hate Google books; or car manufacturers who see driverless cars on the roads and worry that even their industry is vulnerable to the Valley.

一種說法是，只是由於谷歌是硅谷最無處不在的名字，因此它吸引了格外關注。（並不是每一個人都買得起iPhone，但是谷歌對所有網民都是免費的）。另一種觀點是，谷歌業務的廣度意味着它讓世界各地、各領域的現有公司都感到心煩——無論是被谷歌新聞(Google News)惹火的報紙；受到YouTube（歸谷歌所有）威脅的媒體公司；憎恨谷歌圖書(Google books)的出版商；還是在大街上看到無人駕駛汽車、擔心甚至汽車行業也難逃硅谷魔掌的汽車製造商。

Some European politicians have been explicit in their concerns that the success of the US internet giants poses a direct threat to Europe. Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s vice-chancellor, worried aloud last year that “this (digital) infrastructure will be controlled by a handful of American internet concerns, which could dominate the economic life of the 21st century.”

一些歐洲政治人士明確表示了自己的擔憂——美國互聯網巨頭的成功對歐洲形成了直接威脅。去年，德國副總理西格馬爾•加布里爾(Sigmar Gabriel)曾公開表示了擔憂，稱“這個（數字化）基礎設施將受控於美國少數互聯網康采恩，它們可能會主導21世紀的經濟生活。”

One of the most vociferous corporate critics of Google is the Axel Springer publishing group in Germany, a powerful voice in Berlin and Brussels, and which provided crucial support for the election of Jean-Claude Juncker as the head of the European Commission.

對谷歌批評最猛烈的企業是德國出版集團斯普林格集團(Axel Springer)。該集團在柏林和布魯塞爾都有着強大的話語權，在讓-克洛德•容克(Jean-Claude Juncker)競選歐盟委員會主席時提供了至關重要的支持。

President Obama seemed to buy the idea that US internet companies are the victims of European protectionism, when he argued recently that — “We (America) have owned the internet. Our companies have created it, expanded it, perfected it, in ways they can’t compete.” What Mr Obama did not add is that the US government itself has done much to damage Silicon Valley. The Snowden affair has firmly established the idea that any internet search, email or post is open to surveillance, either by the government or by the likes of Google and Facebook.

美國總統奧巴馬似乎接受了美國互聯網企業是歐洲保護主義的受害者這一觀點，最近他指出——“我們（美國）擁有互聯網。我們的企業，以他們（歐洲）無法媲美的方式，創造、擴大並完善了互聯網。”奧巴馬沒補充的是，美國政府本身也做過許多有損硅谷的事。斯諾登事件讓人們產生了一個堅定的想法——任何互聯網搜索、電子郵件或者帖子均是受監控的，要麼受政府監控，要麼受谷歌和Facebook之類的公司監控。

Google and other internet giants vehemently deny that they ever gave governments the keys to a secret back door into their data. Indeed, they complain that they were themselves the victims of snooping. In an effort to regain consumer trust, the Silicon Valley firms are emphasising their new encryption technologies and privacy safeguards. But the damage is done. Concern about government snooping has become intertwined with anxiety about the commercial use of data by firms such as Google. That, in turn, has fed the appetite for the regulation of the internet.

谷歌及其他互聯網巨頭均極力否認曾向政府提供進入其數據庫祕密後門的鑰匙。事實上，它們抱怨稱，自己也是監視的受害者。爲了重新得到消費者的信任，硅谷公司正在強調它們新的加密技術以及隱私保護措施。但是，傷害已經形成。人們對政府監視的擔憂，與對谷歌等公司將數據用於商業的焦慮，交織在一起。這反過來又推動了人們對互聯網監管的渴望。

All of this political heat appears to have come as an unpleasant surprise to the company, which seems genuinely to believe that it lives by the motto of its founders: “Don’t be evil.” Yet the real surprise is that the political backlash did not come sooner. Google proclaims its mission is “to organise the world’s information”. But, as the saying goes, “information is power”. And power has traditionally been the province of politicians.

圍繞此事的所有政治熱度，貌似都以令人不快的意外出現在谷歌面前，而這家公司似乎真的相信自己一直遵循着其創始人的格言——“不作惡”(Don’t be evil)。不過，真正令人意外的是這種政治對抗並未在更早的時候到來。谷歌宣稱自己的使命是“組織全世界的信息”。但是，常言道，“信息就是力量”。而權力一直都是政治人士的地盤。

Some argue that it is better that “elected politicians”, not business people, should take decisions about the flow of information and data. But some of the political figures most eager to take on Google — like the Chinese government and even the European Commission — are not, in fact, elected. And while nobody voted for the engineers and entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, more than a billion customers have voted with their fingers by clicking on Google products. That is the kind of vote of confidence that most politicians can only dream of.

有人認爲，最好應該讓“選舉出來的政治人士”，而不是商界人士，來對信息和數據流作出決定。但是，事實上，最渴望與谷歌較量的政治人物中，有些並不是選舉產生的，比如中國政府以及歐盟委員會。雖然沒有人給硅谷的工程師和企業家投票，但是超過10億的消費者已經以點擊谷歌產品的方式用手指爲他們投了票。這是多數政客只能幻想得到的信心投票。