評論
打印
To ensure that the platforms do not favour their own products, oversight groups could be set up to deliberate on complaints from rivals
要確保平臺不偏袒自己的產品，可以設立監督小組來審議對手的投訴，
a bit like the independent “technical committee” created by the antitrust case against Microsoft in 2001. Immunity to content liability must go, too.
這有點像2001年針對微軟反壟斷案成立的獨立“技術委員會”。對內容免責的豁免也必須取消。
Second, trustbusters need to think afresh about how tech markets work.
其次，反壟斷機構需要重新思考科技市場的運作方式。
A central insight, one increasingly discussed among economists and regulators, is that personal data are the currency in which customers actually buy services.
經濟學家和監管機構討論的越來越多的一個重要見解是，消費者實際上是用個人數據作為貨幣來購買服務的。
Through that prism, the tech titans receive valuable information—on their users’ behaviour, friends and purchasing habits—in return for their products.
從這個角度看，科技巨頭通過產品獲得了關于用戶行為、人際關系和購買習慣的寶貴信息。
Just as America drew up sophisticated rules about intellectual property in the 19th century,
美國在19世紀制定了有關知識產權的復雜規則，同樣，
so it needs a new set of laws to govern the ownership and exchange of data, with the aim of giving solid rights to individuals.
現在它需要一套新的法律來管理數據的所有權和交換，好讓個人能切實掌握自己的權利。
In essence this means giving people more control over their information.
這實質上是讓人們更好地控制自己的信息。
If a user so desires, key data should be made available in real time to other firms—as banks in Europe are now required to do with customers’ account information.
如果用戶有需要，關鍵數據就應實時提供給其他公司，現在歐洲的銀行在處理客戶賬戶信息方面就被要求做到這一點。
Regulators could oblige platform firms to make anonymised bulk data available to competitors, in return for a fee, a bit like the compulsory licensing of a patent.
監管機構可以要求平臺公司向競爭對手提供匿名的批量數據，換取一定的費用，有點像專利的強制許可。
Such data-sharing requirements could be calibrated to firms’ size: the bigger platforms are, the more they have to share.
這種數據共享要求可以根據企業的規模作調整：企業越大，要共享的數據就越多。
These mechanisms would turn data from something titans hoard, to suppress competition, into something users share, to foster innovation.
這些做法能把巨頭為了抑制競爭而囤積的數據變成可供用戶分享、促進創新的數據。
None of this will be simple, but it would tame the titans without wrecking the gains they have brought.
這些事做起來都不容易，但能讓科技巨頭收斂，同時又不破壞它們帶來的好處。
Users would find it easier to switch between services.
用戶轉換服務也會更容易。
Upstart competitors would have access to some of the data that larger firms hold and thus be better equipped to grow to maturity without being gobbled up.
崛起的競爭對手可以獲得大公司持有的部分數據，從而更有可能成長壯大而不是被吞并。
And shareholders could no longer assume monopoly profits for decades to come.
股東們則再也不能指望未來幾十年都獲得壟斷利潤了。
譯文來源考研英語時事閱讀
