隐私将成为科技公司竞争优势

In the 21st century digital economy, personal data has become the most valuable resource for nearly every business. But the technology companies that mine it may soon have to define whether they are data peddlers or data stewards. Are they tracking us and selling our personal information to the highest bidder, as both Google and Facebook do? Or do they have a different business model, one in which data can be monetised in a way that leaves them less open to public criticism and the possibility of increased regulation?

在21世纪数字经济中，个人数据已成为几乎所有业务最宝贵的资源。不过那些挖掘个人数据的科技公司可能很快就需要对自己做出界定：它们到底是兜售数据的商贩，还是管理数据的管理员?它们是像谷歌(Google)和Facebook那样，追踪我们并将我们的个人信息贩卖给出价最高者?还是它们有不同的商业模式，在该模式下它们可以利用这些数据创造收入，而不那么容易受到公众批评，也不太可能面临更严格的监管?

Over the last two weeks, both Apple and IBM have launched public relations efforts to position themselves in the latter camp. Apple rolled out a new privacy website to better showcase features that it believes differentiate the company from competitors such as Google, including algorithmic searching that works at the level of individual devices rather than in the “cloud”, giving users more control over what the company can see.

不久前，苹果(Apple)和IBM都展开了公关行动，将自己归入后一阵营。苹果推出了一个新的隐私网站，以更好地展示一些它认为将自己与谷歌等公司区分开来的特性，包括在单个设备而不是“云端”层面运行的搜索算法，让用户对苹果能看到什么拥有更大控制权。

Meanwhile, Ginni Rometty, IBM’s chief executive, met with European commissioners and members of the European Parliament to announce a new set of data principles and practices aimed at increasing trust in Big Tech. These included a pledge never to turn over client data to any government surveillance program in any country, as well as a promise that clients will own not only the rights to their end data, but to any algorithmic “learning” from it.

同一时间，IBM首席执行官罗睿兰(Ginni Rometty)与欧盟委员会(European Commission)和欧洲议会(European Parliament)的成员会面，公布了一套新的旨在提高科技巨擘(Big Tech)受信任度的数据原则和实践，其中还包括一项承诺：永远不会将客户数据交给任何国家的任何政府监控计划，同时承诺客户不仅对其终端数据享有权利，还对任何源自其终端数据的算法“学习成果”也享有权利。

The clear and very interesting message is that in a world in which companies have more personal information about us than ever before, and hold data that can be used in myriad nefarious ways (à la the Russia-Facebook scandal), privacy has become a competitive advantage.

这些行动传递了一条明确且有趣的信息：在这个时代，企业对我们个人数据的掌握超过了以往任何时候，而且其所掌握的数据可能有无数种不法用途(参见俄罗斯-Facebook丑闻)，隐私已成为一大竞争优势。

“We’re entering an era in which data can be used to solve all sorts of the most pressing problems, but only if there’s trust in how that data has been handled,” Ms Rometty told me in a phone interview last week. “We see ourselves as stewards of clients’ data. And we don’t need to be regulated to do the right thing. We’ve been doing the right thing for a hundred years.”

罗睿兰不久前在电话采访中向我表示：“我们正进入一个用数据能解决一切最紧迫问题的时代，但前提是人们必须信任数据得到处理的方式。我们将自己看做客户数据的管家。而且我们无需被监管着去做正确的事情，一百年来我们一直在做正确的事。”

The comment was a clear swipe at Google and Facebook, both of which have been fined by national privacy watchdogs for their data collection methods, as well as a reference to new UK and EU regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation, that will make it tougher for companies to process, sell, or allow third-party access to personal data without consumers’ explicit consent. But it was also a new kind of marketing pitch: in a world in which most economic value is going to live in intellectual property, we are not only going to protect that value, we are going to offer a greater share of profits from it to clients.

这番话明显是对谷歌和Facebook的暗讽——两家公司都曾因其数据收集方式被国家隐私监管机构处以罚款——此外也意指《欧盟一般数据保护条例》(EU General Data Protection Regulation)等英国和欧盟的新法规。这些法规将令企业更难在未获消费者明确同意情况下处理、销售、以及允许第三方访问个人数据。但这番话也是一种新的营销手段：在这个知识产权蕴含最大经济价值的时代，我们不仅要保护这一价值，而且还要将从中获得的更大一部分利润提供给客户。

How would this work in practice? IBM, which serves mainly other businesses and governments, is now pitching the fact that they won’t keep any proprietary data in their servers for more than a specified contract period, and that the informational wealth garnered from using artificial intelligence to analyse that data would be owned by the clients themselves. For example, if a national health service gave IBM health records, the company could not then monetise information about the fact that certain populations in certain parts of the country have higher than average cancer rates.

这将如何实现呢?IBM——主要为企业和政府服务——现在正大力宣传该公司不会超出具体合约期限在其服务器中保留任何专有数据，而且用人工智能分析这些数据所获得的信息财富也将归客户自己所有。例如，如果一个国家卫生服务机构向IBM提供了健康档案，那么IBM就不能利用该国某些地区某些人群癌症发病率高于平均水平的信息获取收益。

That’s a very different model than Google’s or Facebook’s — those companies are basically highly-targeted advertising businesses which make nearly all their money selling as much specific information about individual users as possible.

这与谷歌或Facebook的模式大不相同，这两家公司基本上是精准定向的广告公司，它们的收入几乎完全来自尽可能多地销售个人用户的具体信息。

Likewise, Apple, which is a consumer business, is touting a technique known as “differential privacy”. This allows the company to gain insights into what users are doing, while preserving a certain amount of privacy by mathematically transforming the data before it leaves a user’s device, in such a way that Apple can’t associate the data it receives with any particular user. The data are used to improve the devices and services that are sold within the Apple ecosystem rather than to send customers hyper-targeted ads from other businesses that they had no idea were getting their data to begin with. That is, again, quite a different business model than the Google/Facebook approach.

与之类似，身为消费品公司的苹果也在推销一种被称为“差分隐私”(differential privacy)的技术。利用该技术，苹果可以了解用户正在做什么，同时在数据离开用户设备前用算法对数据进行转化，从而保留一定的隐私。通过差分隐私算法，苹果无法将其接收到的数据与任何特定用户相关联。这些数据被用于改进苹果生态系统内销售的设备和服务，而不是用来向消费者发送他们一开始就不知道会获得自己数据的其他企业的精准定向广告。这是又一种与谷歌或Facebook大不相同的商业模式。

Does all of this address the questions I’ve raised numerous times in this column about Big Tech’s oversized economic and political power? Yes and no. Apple’s business model doesn’t lend itself to influencing an election like Russia attempted to do in the US via Facebook. It’s also great to hear Tim Cook say that he believes “privacy is a fundamental human right”. But I don’t get the sense that the company has any deep view about how to better share profits within the tech ecosystem (see its battles with Qualcomm and other suppliers). And I don’t expect them to stop offshoring cash anytime soon.

那么，上述这些做法解决了我在专栏中无数次提出过的关于科技巨擘经济和政治影响力过大的问题吗?答案既是肯定的又是否定的。苹果的商业模式让人无法像俄罗斯试图利用Facebook影响美国大选那样，利用它去影响一场大选。听到蒂姆•库克(Tim Cook)说他认为“隐私是一项基本人权”也是件令人振奋的事。但我不觉得该公司对如何改善科技生态系统内的利润分享有任何深刻见解(从它跟高通(Qualcomm)及其他供应商的斗争就能看出)。而且我也不觉得它会在不远的未来停止离岸存放现金。

IBM is in some ways a more interesting case study in whether the digital economy can avoid becoming a zero-sum game. While the power of Watson’s artificial intelligence has been overblown, the idea of simply and explicitly saying to customers “you own the data, and you own the learning” is unique, and, to the extent that clients can really monetise that learning, impactful. Either way, it’s good PR, and that’s certainly something that Big Tech could do with these days.

就数字经济是否能避免成为一场零和游戏的问题来说，IBM在某种程度上是一个更有趣的案例。虽然“沃森”(Watson)的人工智能的威力被夸大了，但这种直接明确地向客户说出“你拥有这些数据，而且你拥有学习成果”的观念是独特的，且就客户可以真正地将这些学习成果变现这一点而言，该观念的影响更是深远的。不管怎么说，这都是一次优秀的公关，正是眼下科技巨擘所需要的。