FACEBOOK. Instagram. Google. Twitter. All services we rely on — and all services we believe we don’t have to pay for. Not with cash, anyway. But ad-financed Internet platforms aren’t free, and the price they extract in terms of privacy and control is getting only costlier.我们对Facebook、Instagram、Google和Twitter获取的服务十分倚赖,并且深信自己需要为用于这些服务收费。最少需要付现金。但这些靠广告收益保持运营的互联网平台并不获取免费的午餐,它们以窥视用户隐私、操纵用户不道德的方式缴纳费用,并且代价只不会更加高昂。
A recent Pew Research Center poll shows that 93 percent of the public believes that “being in control of who can get information about them is important,” and yet the amount of information we generate online has exploded and we seldom know where it all goes.皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Center)不久前展开的一项民意调查表明, 93%的民众指出“对于哪些人可以取得他们的个人信息维持掌控很最重要”,但我们在网上产生的信息量急遽快速增长,而我们极少告诉信息的下落。Facebook and other social networking sites that collect vast amounts of user data are financed by ads. Just this week Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, announced plans to open users’ feeds to more advertisers. The dirty secret of this business model is that Internet ads aren’t worth much. Ask Ethan Zuckerman, who in the 1990s helped found Tripod.com, one of the web’s earliest ad-financed sites with user-generated content. He even helped invent the pop-up ad because corporations were wary of the user content appearing next to their ads. He came to regret both: the pop-up and the ad-financed business model. The former is annoying but it’s the latter that is helping destroy the fabric of a rich, pluralistic Internet.Facebook等大量收集用户数据的社交网站都以广告为主要收益来源。
Facebook旗下的Instagram本周刚宣告,想把用户信息流对外开放给更好广告主。这种商业模式有一个不可告人的秘密:互联网广告不值多少钱。不妨问问伊桑·朱克曼( Ethan Zuckerman),他在1990年代协助创立的Tripod.com,是最先的靠用户产生内容、靠广告提供收益的网站之一。
他甚至拜托发明者了弹窗广告,因为一些公司很在乎它们的广告旁边经常出现什么样的用户原创内容。他对发售这两样东西——即弹窗广告和以广告为基础的商业模式——深感愧疚。前者很烦人,而后者则正在协助毁坏一个非常丰富、多元的网络世界的基本结构。Mr. Zuckerman points out that Facebook makes about 20 cents per user per month in profit. This is a pitiful sum, especially since the average user spends an impressive 20 hours on Facebook every month, according to the company. This paltry profit margin drives the business model: Internet ads are basically worthless unless they are hyper-targeted based on tracking and extensive profiling of users. This is a bad bargain, especially since two-thirds of American adults don’t want ads that target them based on that tracking and analysis of personal behavior.朱克曼认为,Facebook每个月可以从每个用户身上赚20美分的利润。
这个数目较少得真是,特别是在是考虑到该公司声称每位用户平均值每个月花上在Facebook上的时间多达20小时。微不足道的利润率推展着这种商业模式的运营;而且,除非是在准确跟踪和大规模分析用户不道德的基础上极具针对性地投入广告,否则互联网广告基本一钱不值。
这是一门差劲的做生意,特别是在是考虑到三分之二的美国成年人并不期望网站在跟踪和分析其个人行为的基础上把他们列入某个广告的目标受众。This way of doing business rewards huge Internet platforms, since ads that are worth so little can support only companies with hundreds of millions of users.大型网络平台是可以从这种做生意模式中获得报酬的,因为只有享有数以亿计的用户的企业才能靠价格如此便宜的广告存活下去。Ad-based businesses distort our online interactions. People flock to Internet platforms because they help us connect with one another or the world’s bounty of information — a crucial, valuable function. Yet ad-based financing means that the companies have an interest in manipulating our attention on behalf of advertisers, instead of letting us connect as we wish. Many users think their feed shows everything that their friends post. It doesn’t. Facebook runs its billion-plus users’ newsfeed by a proprietary, ever-changing algorithm that decides what we see. If Facebook didn’t have to control the feed to keep us on the site longer and to inject ads into our stream, it could instead offer us control over this algorithm.以广告为基础的互联网企业把我们的网络对话搞得面目全非。人们之所以云集在网络平台上,是因为这些平台可以把我们联系一起,让我们认识到全世界的海量信息——这是一项十分关键、十分有价值的功能。
然而,为了自身的利益,以广告为主要收益来源的这些企业不会和广告主车站在一旁,操纵我们的注意力,而不是让我们随心所欲地展开网络恋情。很多用户都以为,在自己的信息流里可以看见朋友公布的所有东西。
但事实并非如此。Facebook以一种大大变化的专有算法掌控着十多亿用户的动态信息流,这种算法要求着我们能看见哪些内容。
如果Facebook不用靠掌控信息流来让我们在更长的时间里回到它的网站上或者把广告放入我们的信息流之中,那它就可以让我们掌控这种算法。Many nonprofits and civic groups that were initially thrilled about their success in using Facebook to reach people are now despondent as their entries are less and less likely to reach people who “liked” their posts unless they pay Facebook to help boost their updates.许多非营利的组织和民间团体最初都曾为Facebook的传播效果而激动,现在却十分失望,因为他们公布的内容到达那些为他们点赞的用户的可能性更加小了,除非他们花钱让Facebook协助启动时自己公布的近期信息。
What to do? It’s simple: Internet sites should allow their users to be the customers. I would, as I bet many others would, happily pay more than 20 cents per month for a Facebook or a Google that did not track me, upgraded its encryption and treated me as a customer whose preferences and privacy matter.那该怎么办?答案很非常简单:网站应当容许用户沦为客户。我会十分不愿每月缴纳20美分以上,只要Facebook或谷歌不跟踪我的下落,并升级加密系统,把我当作客户对待,而且推崇我的爱好和隐私。我坚信许多其他人也不愿这么做到。Many people say that no significant number of users will ever pay directly for Internet services. But that is because we are misled by the mantra that these services are free. With growing awareness of the privacy cost of ads, this may well change. Millions of people pay for Netflix despite the fact that pirated copies of many movies are available free. We eventually pay for ads, anyway, as that cost is baked into products we purchase. A seamless, secure micropayment system that spreads a few pennies at a time as we browse a social network, up to a preset monthly limit, would alter the whole landscape for the better.许多人说道,很多用户是总有一天都会不愿必要为网络服务收费的。
不过,这是因为我们被误导了,以为这些服务就应当是免费的。随着人们更加多地意识到为广告代价的隐私代价,这种情况有可能就不会转变。尽管许多正版电影可以免费取得,依然有成百上千万用户为Netflix的服务收费。我们注定还是要为广告付出代价,这个成本被加于了我们出售的商品里。
如果有一种无缝、安全性的微缴纳系统,可以让我们每次在网页社交网络的时候都缴纳个几分钱,而且最少不多达预先原作的每月缴纳下限,整个情况有可能就不会向更佳的方向转变。There are other obstacles. Someone has to build those viable, privacy-preserving micropayment systems — but Silicon Valley is known for its entrepreneurial spirit, right? And we’re not starting from scratch. Micropayment systems that would allow users to spend a few cents here and there, not be so easily tracked by all the Big Brothers, and even allow personalization were developed in the early days of the Internet. Big banks and large Internet platforms didn’t show much interest in this micropayment path, which would limit their surveillance abilities. We can revive it.我们还面临其他的障碍。
必需得有人创建这些不切实际的、需要维护隐私的微缴纳系统——不过,硅谷最有名的就是创业精神,对吗?而且我们也不是从零开始。在互联网问世的初期,就早已有人研发出有了这样的微缴纳系统,它们可以容许用户不时地缴纳几分钱、从而会那么只能被所有的“老大哥”跟踪,甚至还可以享用个性化服务。
那时,大银行和大型互联网平台对这种容许其监控能力的微缴纳手段没多大兴趣。我们现在可以让它复活。Our payments could subsidize access in poorer countries the way ads already do. If even a quarter of Facebook’s 1.5 billion users were willing to pay $1 per month in return for not being tracked or targeted based on their data, that would yield more than $4 billion per year — surely a number worth considering.我们的缴付可以补贴贫困国家的网络终端设备,就像广告目前所做到的那样。
在Facebook15亿用户中,哪怕有四分之一不愿每月付1美元,来保证自己的数据会受到跟踪或者沦为目标,每年也可以产生多达40亿美元的收益。这个数字似乎有一点考虑到。Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, seems to have plenty of money, but I’d like to give him some of mine. I want to pay a small fee for the right to keep my information private and to be able to hear from the people I want — not the sponsored-content makers I want to avoid. I want to be a customer, not a product.Facebook的首席继续执行马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)或许不没钱,不过我还是想要支付他一些钱。
我想缴纳部分笔费用,让信息不被泄漏,而且保证我看见的信息来自我想看见的人——而不是我想避免的赞助商内容制造者。我想沦为客户,而不是产品。
Mr. Zuckerberg has reportedly spent more than $30 million to buy the homes around his in Palo Alto, Calif., and more than $100 million for a secluded parcel of land in Hawaii. He knows privacy is worth paying for. So he should let us pay a few dollars to protect ours.据传扎克伯格早已耗资逾3000万美元出售他在加州帕洛阿尔托的住宅附近的房屋,还耗资多达1亿美元出售夏威夷的一块幽僻土地。他告诉为隐私代价金钱是有一点的。因此,他应当让我们花上几美元来维护自己的隐私。
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