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Watchdogs are growling at the web giants, and sometimes biting them. European data-protection agencies wrote to Google, Microsof

admin2012-12-30  59
问题     Watchdogs are growling at the web giants, and sometimes biting them. European data-protection agencies wrote to Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! demanding independent proof that they were making promised changes to protect the privacy of users’ search history. They also urged Google to store sensitive search data for only six months instead of nine.
    Ten privacy and data-protection commissioners from countries including Canada, Germany and Britain wrote a public letter to Eric Schmidt, Google’s boss, demanding changes in Google Buzz, the firm’s social-networking service, which had been criticised for dipping into users’ Gmail accounts to find "followers" for them without clearly explaining what it was doing. Google promptly complied.
    Such run-ins with regulators are likely to multiply and limit the freedom of global Internet firms. It is not just that online privacy has become a controversial issue. More importantly, privacy rules are national, but data flows lightly and instantly across borders, often thanks to companies like Google and Fa-cebook, which manage vast databases.
    A recent scandal dubbed "Wi-Figate" exemplifies the problem. Google (accidentally, it insists) gathered data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in people’s homes as part of a project to capture images of streets around the world. A number of regulators launched investigations. Yet their reaction varied widely, even within the European Union, where member states have supposedly aligned their stance on online privacy. Some European regulators ordered Google to preserve the data it had collected in their bailiwicks; others demanded that information related to their countries be destroyed.
    Despite such differences within Europe, the gap is much greater between Europe and America, home to many of the world’s largest online social networks and search engines. European regulations are inspired by the conviction that data privacy is a fundamental human right and that individuals should be in control of how their data are used. America, on the other hand, takes a more relaxed view, allowing people to use consumer-protection laws to seek redress if they feel their privacy has been violated. Companies that handle users’ data are largely expected to police themselves.
    Some experts say this dichotomy explains why Silicon Valley firms that strike out abroad have sometimes been the targets of European Union data watchdogs. Jules Polonetsky of the Future of Privacy Forum, a think tank, says that many American firms have yet to learn that showing up in Europe and extolling the virtues of self-regulation is likely to be as ineffective as rightwing politicians denouncing antidiscrimination laws back home.
    Transatlantic friction between companies and regulators has grown as Europe’s data guardians have become more assertive. Francesca Bignami, a professor at George Washington University’s law school, says that the explosion of digital technologies has made it impossible for watchdogs to keep a close eye on every web company operating in their backyard. So instead they are relying more on scapegoating prominent wrongdoers in the hope that this will deter others.
    But regulators such as Peter Schaar, who heads Germany’s federal data-protection agency, say the gulf is exaggerated. Some European countries, he points out, now have rules that make companies who suffer big losses of customer data to report these to the authorities. The inspiration for these measures comes from America.
    Yet even Mr. Schaar admits that the Internet’s global scale means that there will need to be changes on both sides of the Atlantic. He hints that Europe might adopt a more flexible regulatory stance if America were to create what amounts to an independent data-protection body along European lines. In Europe, where the flagship Data Protection Directive came into effect in 1995, before firms such as Google and Facebook were even founded, the European Commission is conducting a review of its privacy policies. In America, Congress has begun debating a new privacy bill and the Federal Trade Commission is considering an overhaul of its rules. David Vladeck.the head of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, has acknowledged that "existing privacy frameworks have limitations".
    Even if America and Europe do narrow their differences, Internet firms will still have to grapple with other data watchdogs. In Asia, countries that belong to APEC are trying to develop a set of regional guidelines for privacy rules under an initiative known as the Data Privacy Pathfinder. Some countries such as Australia and New Zealand have longstanding privacy laws, but many emerging nations have yet to roll out fully fledged versions of their own. Mr. Polonetsky sees Asia as "a new privacy battleground", with America and Europe both keen to tempt countries towards their own regulatory model. Shoehorning such firms into antiquated privacy frameworks will not benefit either them or their users.
Mr. Schaar’s attitude towards watchdogs in America and Europe is
选项 A、biased.
B、objective.
C、ambivalent.
D、ambiguous.
答案B
解析 态度题。由题干中的Mr．Schaar定位至第八段。首句指出“Yet even Mr．Schaar admits thatthe Internet’s global scale means that there will need to be changes on both sides of the Atlantic．”。第二句随之做出解释：他暗示如果美国按照欧洲方式建立一个相当于数据保护的独立主体，欧洲可能会采取更灵活的监管立场。由此可以判断，虽然Mr．Schaar是德国监管机构人员，但对于欧美在监管上存在的分歧持有的态度还是比较客观的，故[B]为答案。
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