為了隱私保護 我寧願付費使用Facebook

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.

我們對Facebook、Instagram、Google和Twitter提供的服務十分依賴，並且堅信自己無需為使用這些服務付費。至少無需付現金。但這些靠廣告收入維持運營的網際網路平臺並不提供免費的午餐，它們以窺探使用者隱私、操控使用者行為的方式收取費用，並且代價只會越來越高昂。

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)不久前進行的一項民意調查顯示， 93%的民眾認為“對於哪些人可以獲得他們的個人資訊保持控制很重要”，但我們在網上產生的資訊量急劇增長，而我們甚少知道資訊的去向。

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 , 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等大量蒐集使用者資料的社交網站都以廣告為主要收入來源。Facebook旗下的Instagram本週剛剛宣佈，打算把使用者資訊流開放給更多廣告主。這種商業模式有一個不可告人的祕密：網際網路廣告不值多少錢。不妨問問伊桑·朱克曼( Ethan Zuckerman)，他在1990年代幫助創辦的，是最早的靠使用者產生內容、靠廣告獲取收入的網站之一。他甚至幫忙發明了彈窗廣告，因為一些公司很在意它們的廣告旁邊出現什麼樣的使用者原創內容。他對推出這兩樣東西——即彈窗廣告和以廣告為基礎的商業模式——感到後悔。前者很煩人，而後者則正在幫助摧毀一個豐富、多元的網路世界的基本結構。

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.

朱克曼指出，Facebook每個月可以從每個使用者身上賺取20美分的利潤。這個數目少得可憐，尤其是考慮到該公司聲稱每位使用者平均每個月花在Facebook上的時間多達20小時。微不足道的利潤率推動著這種商業模式的執行；而且，除非是在精確追蹤和大規模分析使用者行為的基礎上極具針對性地投放廣告，否則網際網路廣告基本一錢不值。這是一門糟糕的生意，尤其是考慮到三分之二的美國成年人並不希望網站在追蹤和分析其個人行為的基礎上把他們列為某個廣告的目標受眾。

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.

大型網路平臺是可以從這種生意模式中得到回報的，因為只有擁有數以億計的使用者的企業才能靠價格如此低廉的廣告生存下去。

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.

以廣告為基礎的網際網路企業把我們的網路互動搞得面目全非。人們之所以雲集在網路平臺上，是因為這些平臺可以把我們聯絡起來，讓我們接觸到全世界的海量資訊——這是一項非常關鍵、非常有價值的功能。然而，為了自身的利益，以廣告為主要收入來源的這些企業會和廣告主站在一邊，操控我們的注意力，而不是讓我們隨心所欲地進行網路交往。很多使用者都以為，在自己的資訊流裡可以看到朋友釋出的所有東西。但事實並非如此。Facebook以一種不斷變化的專有演算法控制著十多億使用者的動態資訊流，這種演算法決定著我們能看到哪些內容。如果Facebook不必靠控制資訊流來讓我們在更長的時間裡留在它的網站上或者把廣告插入我們的資訊流之中，那它就可以讓我們控制這種演算法。

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.

許多非營利組織和民間團體最初都曾為Facebook的傳播效果而興奮，現在卻十分沮喪，因為他們釋出的內容抵達那些為他們點讚的使用者的可能性越來越小了，除非他們花錢讓Facebook幫助推送自己釋出的最新資訊。

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.

那該怎麼辦？答案很簡單：網站應該允許使用者成為客戶。我會非常願意每月支付20美分以上，只要Facebook或谷歌不追蹤我的行蹤，並升級加密系統，把我當成客戶對待，而且重視我的喜好和隱私。我相信許多其他人也願意這麼做。

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.

許多人說，很多使用者是永遠都不會願意直接為網路服務付費的。不過，這是因為我們被誤導了，以為這些服務就應該是免費的。隨著人們越來越多地意識到為廣告付出的隱私代價，這種情況可能就會改變。儘管許多盜版電影可以免費獲得，仍然有成百上千萬用戶為Netflix的服務付費。我們終究還是要為廣告付出代價，這個成本被加在了我們購買的商品裡。如果有一種無縫、安全的微支付系統，可以讓我們每次在瀏覽社交網路的時候都支付個幾分錢，而且最多不超過預先設定的每月支付上限，整個情況可能就會向更好的方向改變。

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.

我們還面對其他的障礙。必須得有人建立這些可行的、能夠保護隱私的微支付系統——不過，矽谷最出名的就是創業精神，對嗎？而且我們也不是從零開始。在網際網路誕生的初期，就已經有人開發出了這樣的微支付系統，它們可以允許使用者不時地支付幾分錢、從而不會那麼輕易被所有的“老大哥”追蹤，甚至還可以享受個性化服務。那時，大銀行和大型網際網路平臺對這種限制其監控能力的微支付手段沒有多大興趣。我們現在可以讓它復活。

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.

我們的付款可以補貼貧窮國家的網路接入裝置，就像廣告目前所做的那樣。在Facebook15億使用者中，哪怕有四分之一願意每月付1美元，來確保自己的資料不會受到追蹤或者成為目標，每年也可以產生超過40億美元的收益。這個數字顯然值得考慮。

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的首席執行馬克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)似乎不缺錢，不過我還是想付給他一些錢。我想要支付一小筆費用，讓資訊不被洩露，而且確保我看到的資訊來自我想要看到的人——而不是我想要避開的贊助內容製造者。我想要成為客戶，而不是產品。

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.

據說扎克伯格已經斥資逾3000萬美元購買他在加州帕洛阿爾託的住宅附近的房屋，還斥資超過1億美元購買夏威夷的一塊幽僻土地。他知道為隱私付出金錢是值得的。因此，他應該讓我們花幾美元來保護自己的隱私。