双语阅读｜世上最值钱的资源：石油？不，数据！
A NEW commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era. These titans—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft—look unstoppable. They are the five most valuable listed firms in the world. Their profits are surging: they collectively racked up over $25bn in net profit in the first quarter of 2017. Amazon captures half of all dollars spent online in America. Google and Facebook accounted for almost all the revenue growth in digital advertising in America last year.
当一种新商品发展成利润丰厚、迅速发展的产业时，反垄断监管机构就要介入对产业龙头企业进行管制。一百年前，这种商品就是石油；如今，这种商品是数据，数字时代的“石油”。和曾经的石油大亨一样，互联网产业的龙头企业也引发了类似的垄断问题。但是，它们的发展却似乎势不可挡。Alphabet（谷歌母公司）、亚马逊、苹果、Facebook、以及微软已经成为全球市值最高的上市公司。不仅如此，它们的利润还在不断飞涨，仅2017年第一季度，五大公司的净利总和就已超过250亿美元。亚马逊一家就占据了全美网购消费金额的50%，而谷歌和Facebook去年更是几乎占据了全美数字广告收入增长的100%。
Such dominance has prompted calls for the tech giants to be broken up, as Standard Oil was in the early 20th century. This newspaper has argued against such drastic action in the past. Size alone is not a crime. The giants’ success has benefited consumers. Few want to live without Google’s search engine, Amazon’s one-day delivery or Facebook’s newsfeed. Nor do these firms raise the alarm when standard antitrust tests are applied. Far from gouging consumers, many of their services are free (users pay, in effect, by handing over yet more data). Take account of offline rivals, and their market shares look less worrying. And the emergence of upstarts like Snapchat suggests that new entrants can still make waves.
大科技公司牢牢把控着市场，不少人因此呼吁政府像20世纪初拆分美国标准石油公司（Standard Oil）一样将其拆分。不过，《经济学人》过去一直反对这样大刀阔斧的拆分。企业规模庞大本身并没有过错，行业巨头的成功反而对消费者有利。没人不喜欢谷歌的搜索引擎、亚马逊的当日送达服务、Facebook的新闻推送服务。况且，这些巨头不仅安全通过了标准化反垄断测试，不欺骗消费者，反而提供了很多免费服务（尽管用户实际上通过上传更多数据的方式变相“付费”）。考虑到线下的竞争对手，它们的市场份额其实也并不十分令人担忧。后起之秀Snapchat就曾表示，新兴企业仍有成长和作为的空间。
But there is cause for concern. Internet companies’ control of data gives them enormous power. Old ways of thinking about competition, devised in the era of oil, look outdated in what has come to be called the “data economy”. A new approach is needed.
不过，互联网公司靠控制数据掌握了极大的权力，这一点令人担心。过去石油时代的竞争模式早已过时，如今已经进入全新的“数字经济”时代，因此，新的管理方案亟待出炉。
What has changed? Smartphones and the internet have made data abundant, ubiquitous and far more valuable. Whether you are going for a run, watching TV or even just sitting in traffic, virtually every activity creates a digital trace—more raw material for the data distilleries. As devices from watches to cars connect to the internet, the volume is increasing: some estimate that a self-driving car will generate 100 gigabytes per second. Meanwhile, artificial-intelligence (AI) techniques such as machine learning extract more value from data. Algorithms can predict when a customer is ready to buy, a jet-engine needs servicing or a person is at risk of a disease. Industrial giants such as GE and Siemens now sell themselves as data firms.
“数字经济”时代有哪些变化？智能手机和互联网的普及使数据快速增长，无处不在，价值飙升。不论我们跑步、看电视还是坐在公车地铁里，几乎每一项活动都在为数据提炼厂提供鲜活的原材料，留下数据痕迹。随着手表、汽车等越来越多的设备连上互联网，数据规模还在不断扩大：一些专家估计自动驾驶汽车每秒产生的数据规模将近100G。同时，类似机器学习这样的人工智能技术，能够从数据中提取更多有价值的信息。计算机算法甚至能够预测顾客何时打算付钱、喷气发动机何时需要维修、人何时有患病风险等等。像通用和西门子公司这样的工业巨头现在都在销售与产品相关的数据。
This abundance of data changes the nature of competition. Technology giants have always benefited from network effects: the more users Facebook signs up, the more attractive signing up becomes for others. With data there are extra network effects. By collecting more data, a firm has more scope to improve its products, which attracts more users, generating even more data, and so on. The more data Tesla gathers from its self-driving cars, the better it can make them at driving themselves—part of the reason the firm, which sold only 25,000 cars in the first quarter, is now worth more than GM, which sold 2.3m. Vast pools of data can thus act as protective moats.
庞大的数据也改变了竞争的性质。科技巨头总能够从网络效应中获益：比如，Facebook的注册用户越多，对非用户的诱惑力就越大。数据增长就会带来额外的网络效应。通过广泛收集数据，企业就有更多机会改善产品，吸引更多用户，从而收集更多数据，以此形成良性循环。特斯拉汽车正是因为通过其无人驾驶汽车获得了大量数据信息，其自动驾驶系统才不断得以改造升级。这也是特斯拉成功的众多原因之一。去年第一季度，特斯拉的全球销量才只有2.5万辆，而现在销量已突破230万，公司市值超过通用。这些都说明，大量的数据能够为公司在激烈的竞争中保驾护航。
Access to data also protects companies from rivals in another way. The case for being sanguine about competition in the tech industry rests on the potential for incumbents to be blindsided by a startup in a garage or an unexpected technological shift. But both are less likely in the data age. The giants’ surveillance systems span the entire economy: Google can see what people search for, Facebook what they share, Amazon what they buy. They own app stores and operating systems, and rent out computing power to startups. They have a “God’s eye view” of activities in their own markets and beyond. They can see when a new product or service gains traction, allowing them to copy it or simply buy the upstart before it becomes too great a threat. Many think Facebook’s $22bn purchase in 2014 of WhatsApp, a messaging app with fewer than 60 employees, falls into this category of “shoot-out acquisitions” that eliminate potential rivals. By providing barriers to entry and early-warning systems, data can stifle competition.
此外，数据的获取还能从另一个方面树立“护城河”。在技术领域，如果老牌企业可能会遭到车库中诞生的“黑马”公司逆袭，或者在始料未及的科技转型中遭遇颠覆，那么此行业的竞争状况就比较积极。可是，在现在的大数据背景下，以上两种情况都不大可能发生。行业巨头的监控触角遍及整个经济各个领域：Google知道人们在搜索什么，Facebook知道人们在关注分享什么，亚马逊知道人们在买什么。它们把持着自己的应用商店和操作系统，而把运算分析外包给创业企业。它们在其业务市场内外都具有“天眼”，知道一种新产品或一项新服务何时会受关注并开始流行，因此，能在创业企业产生实质性威胁之前，复制同类产品或提供同类服务，或者直接将其收购。许多人称Facebook在2014年以220亿美金高价收购WhatsApp就属于“狙击收购”策略，当时，这个新兴即时通讯应用的运营团队规模还不到60人，Facebook此举很可能是为了消灭潜在的竞争对手。通过设置入行门槛和预警系统，数据就能够抑制竞争。
The nature of data makes the antitrust remedies of the past less useful. Breaking up a firm like Google into five Googlets would not stop network effects from reasserting themselves: in time, one of them would become dominant again. A radical rethink is required—and as the outlines of a new approach start to become apparent, two ideas stand out.
数据的本质还会使过去的反垄断补救措施逐渐失效。即使把谷歌公司拆分为5个小公司，也阻止不了网络效应的大势所趋：迟早有一天，其中的一个小公司又会发展成为行业巨头。这时就需要颠覆性思考。随着新治理方案的脉络逐渐清晰，有两种想法脱颖而出。
The first is that antitrust authorities need to move from the industrial era into the 21st century. When considering a merger, for example, they have traditionally used size to determine when to intervene. They now need to take into account the extent of firms’ data assets when assessing the impact of deals. The purchase price could also be a signal that an incumbent is buying a nascent threat. On these measures, Facebook’s willingness to pay so much for WhatsApp, which had no revenue to speak of, would have raised red flags. Trustbusters must also become more data-savvy in their analysis of market dynamics, for example by using simulations to hunt for algorithms colluding over prices or to determine how best to promote competition.
第一，反垄断有关机构应该从工业时代迈向21世纪。例如，针对合并问题，他们过去总是根据企业规模来决定何时介入干预。现在，在评估合并影响时，他们应该考虑企业的数据资产规模。高价收购可能成为老牌企业消灭潜在威胁的信号。由此看来，Facebook愿意花重金收购几乎不盈利的Whatsapp本身就该引起相当重视。在分析市场动态时，反垄断官员必须对数据有独到的悟性。例如，利用模拟技术寻找能够串通操纵商品价格的算法，或制定竞争最大化的方案。
The second principle is to loosen the grip that providers of online services have over data and give more control to those who supply them. More transparency would help: companies could be forced to reveal to consumers what information they hold and how much money they make from it. Governments could encourage the emergence of new services by opening up more of their own data vaults or managing crucial parts of the data economy as public infrastructure, as India does with its digital-identity system, Aadhaar. They could also mandate the sharing of certain kinds of data, with users’ consent—an approach Europe is taking in financial services by requiring banks to make customers’ data accessible to third parties.
第二，放松网络服务提供商对数据控制，将更多的控制权给予数据提供方。倡导透明性将有助于实现这一原则：强制企业向消费者公布已有信息，并表明从中所获利润的具体数额。正如印度向公民发行Aadhaar身份识别号码一样，各国政府也可以向公众开放更多数据仓库，或者将数字经济的重要部分作为公共基础设施来运营管理，从而鼓励更多新型服务模式的出现。政府还可以在用户允许的前提下，批准并实现部分数据共享。目前，欧洲正在金融服务领域采取类似办法，要求银行将顾客信息与第三方共享。
Rebooting antitrust for the information age will not be easy. It will entail new risks: more data sharing, for instance, could threaten privacy. But if governments don’t want a data economy dominated by a few giants, they will need to act soon.
在信息时代重启反垄断行动并不容易。这个过程中可能会出现新的危险，比如过度的数据共享损害到个人隐私。不过，如果政府不愿意看到数字经济被几个行业巨头操纵，就要尽快采取动作了。
编译：朱桀
审核：吴越
编辑：翻吧君
来源：经济学人