Let’s give credit where it is due: Google is not hiding its revolutionary ambitions. As its co-founder Larry Page put it in 2004, eventually its search function “will be included in people’s brains” so that “when you think about something and don’t really know much about it, you will automatically get information”. 该表扬的就要表扬：谷歌(Google)毫不隐瞒自己的革命性创想。正如联合创始人拉里•佩奇(Larry Page)2004年所说，谷歌的搜索功能最终将“集成在人们的大脑中”，这样“当你思考某事而又对其缺乏足够了解时，便能自动获得信息。”

Science fiction? The implant is a rhetorical flourish but Mr Page’s utopian project is not a distant dream. In reality, the implant does not have be connected to our brains. We carry it in our pockets – it’s called a smartphone. 科幻小说？搜索功能的“植入”是夸夸其谈，但佩奇的乌托邦式计划并非遥不可及的幻想。事实上，搜索功能不一定要植入我们的大脑中。它装在我们的口袋中，名叫智能手机。

So long as Google can interpret – and predict – our intentions, Mr Page’s vision of a continuous and frictionless information supply could be fulfilled. However, to realise this vision, Google needs a wealth of data about us. Knowing what we search for helps – but so does knowing about our movements, our surroundings, our daily routines and our favourite cat videos. 只要谷歌能够理解和预测我们的意图，佩奇对连续、流畅地提供信息的设想便有可能实现。然而，若要实现设想，谷歌需要大量关于我们的信息。掌握我们的搜索内容固然有用，但了解我们的行踪、环境、日常活动规律和最喜爱的猫咪视频同样有帮助。

Some of this information has been collected through our browsers but in a messy, disaggregated form. Back in 1996, Google didn’t set out with a strategy for world domination. Its acquisition of services such as YouTube was driven by tactics more than strategy. While it was collecting a lot of data from its many services, from email to calendar, such data were kept in separate databases – which made the implant scenario hard to accomplish. 部分信息通过我们的浏览器收集，但收集的方式杂乱无章。早在1996年的时候，谷歌还没有确立统治世界的战略，它收购YouTube等服务，更多是出于战术而非战略的需要。当它从邮件和日历等诸多服务中收集大量数据时，这些数据被保存在互不相连的数据库中，使得“植入”的设想难以实现。

Thus, when last year Google announced its privacy policy, which would bring the data collected through its more than 60 online services under one roof, the move made business sense. The obvious reason for doing so is to make individual user profiles even more appealing to advertisers: when Google tracks you it can predict what ads to serve you much better than when it tracks you only across one such service. 因此，谷歌去年公布隐私条款，将60多个在线服务收集的数据纳入同一框架，在商业上是合理的。此举的一个明显动机是增强个人用户资料对广告主的吸引力：比起仅仅追踪用户在一项服务中的行为，谷歌对用户的全方位追踪能够更加准确地预测出符合用户需要的广告类型。

But there is another reason, of course – and it has to do with the Grand Implant Agenda: the more Google knows about us, the easier it can make predictions about what we want – or will want in the near future. Google Now, the company’s latest offering, is meant to do just that: by tracking our every email, appointment and social networking activity, it can predict where we need to be, when, and with whom. Perhaps, it might even order a car to drive us there – the whole point is to relieve us of active decision-making. The implant future is already here – it’s just not evenly resisted. 但毫无疑问，还有另一层与“超级植入计划”有关的原因：谷歌对我们的了解越深入，它就越能轻松地预测出我们现在或将来不久的需求。公司最新产品Google Now正是意图实现这一点：通过跟踪我们的每封邮件、每次约会和每次社交网络活动，预测出我们需要在何时与何人出现在何处。Google Now没准还能预订车辆，把我们送到该地——一切都是为了让我们不用自己做决定。“植入”的未来已经摆在那里，只是没有遭遇相应的阻碍。

This week, data protection authorities from six European countries showed some such resistance when they announced an effort to investigate if Google’s policy violates their national privacy laws. This announcement follows several months of consultation – preceded by a letter that EU data regulators sent to Mr Page in October – which yielded little response from Google. The letter urged the company to disclose how it processes personal data in each service and to clarify why and how it combines data that come from its multiple services. 上周，欧洲六国的数据保护当局成为“拦路虎”，宣布将调查谷歌的隐私条款是否违反各自隐私法。在数月询问谷歌无果后，它们宣布了调查决定。之前，欧盟(EU)数据监管机构曾于去年10月致函佩奇，敦促谷歌披露它如何处理各服务中的个人数据，并说明为何及如何融合不同服务的数据。

Google believes it has met all the formal requirements on announcing the policy back in 2012. Under the current legal regime, Google, even if fined, doesn’t stand to lose much from these investigations. However, if the recent proposal to create a new single EU data regulator that can fine companies up to 2 per cent of their global turnover goes through, it might present Google with a bill as high as $1bn, if any breaches were found. Even if their investigations fail, European regulators must be applauded for embarking on a mission that their colleagues across the Atlantic wouldn’t even dare contemplate. 谷歌认为，其2012年公布的隐私条款已符合全部的正式要求。根据现行法律，即使对谷歌处以罚款，这些调查也不会让谷歌有多大损失。然而，如果欧盟通过近期提案，成立能对公司处以最高达全球营业额2%罚款的单一数据监管机构，谷歌一旦被发现违规，可能将面临高达10亿美元的罚单。即便调查失败，欧洲监管机构也值得赞扬：它们采取的这一行动是美国监管机构想也不敢想的。

Europe, with its unflinching defence of privacy as a fundamental human value, cannot afford to act disjointedly – not at a time when the most powerful company in Silicon Valley is amassing a fleet of self-driving cars and releasing Google Glass, a line of smart glasses that some privacy advocates rightfully compare to stylish CCTV cameras that, for reasons unknown, we have accepted to wear on our heads. 欧洲将隐私作为基本人权严加保护，它必须坚定不移地贯彻这一原则，尤其是当硅谷最强大的公司生产出自动驾驶汽车、发布谷歌眼镜(Google Glass)之时。隐私权倡导者将谷歌的这款智能眼镜比作外表时髦的闭路电视摄像头，这种类比恰如其分——而我们竟然莫名其妙地同意将这种摄像头戴在头上。

Google’s intrusion into the physical world means that, were its privacy policy to stay in place and cover self-driving cars and Google Glass, our internet searches might be linked to our driving routes, while our favourite cat videos might be linked to the actual cats we see in the streets. It also means that everything that Google already knows about us based on our search, email and calendar would enable it to serve us ads linked to the actual physical products and establishments we encounter via Google Glass. 谷歌对实体世界的入侵意味着，如果它的隐私条款维持不变，并且涵盖自动驾驶汽车和谷歌眼镜，那么它可能将我们的互联网搜索与驾车线路联系起来，将我们最喜爱的猫咪视频与我们在街上亲眼见到的猫咪联系起来。这还意味着谷歌可借助根据搜索、邮件和日历对我们形成的认识，向我们投放具有相关性的广告，这些广告与我们通过谷歌眼镜看到的实体产品和店铺有关。

For many this may be a very enticing future. We can have it, but we must also find a way to know – in great detail, not just in summary form – what happens to our data once we share it with Google, and to retain some control over what it can track and for how long. 在许多人看来，这一前景充满了吸引力。但在享受未来的同时，我们必须设法详细了解（而不是粗略了解）谷歌如何使用我们与之分享的数据，并且在一定程度上控制谷歌追踪用户行为的范围和时间。

It would also help if one could drive through the neighbourhood in one of Google’s autonomous vehicles without having to log into Google Plus, the company’s social network, or any other Google service. 如果人们能够乘坐谷歌的自动驾驶汽车穿过社区，而不用登录Google Plus社交网络或其他谷歌服务，那也不错。

The European regulators are not planning to thwart Google’s agenda or nip innovation in the bud. This is an unflattering portrayal that might benefit Google’s lobbying efforts but has no bearing in reality. Quite the opposite: it is only by taking full stock of the revolutionary nature of Google’s agenda that we can get the company to act more responsibly towards its users. 欧洲监管机构并不打算阻碍谷歌实现其计划，也不准备将创新扼杀在萌芽中。如果它们这么做，只会吃力不讨好，反而可能便宜谷歌的游说行动，而在现实中是站不住脚的。恰恰相反：只有全面考虑谷歌计划的革命性，我们才能促使谷歌更加对用户负责。

Engineering, as the tech historian Ken Alder once put it, “operates on a simple, but radical assumption: that the present is nothing more than the raw material from which to construct a better future”. This might well be the case but not all raw materials are alike; if European history teaches us anything, it’s that some raw materials – and privacy is certainly among them – are worth cherishing and preserving in their own right, even if it means that the much-anticipated future will take somewhat more effort and energy to construct. A revolutionary future built on shaky foundations: to that, we must say a resounding No. 正如技术史学家肯•奥尔德(Ken Alder)所说，工程“依赖于一个简单但根本的假设：现在不过是建造更美好未来的原材料”。这句话可能不乏道理，但原材料不全相同。如果说欧洲史教会我们什么的话，那便是：一些“原材料”——当然包括隐私——理应值得珍惜和保护，即便这意味着梦寐以求的未来将需要更多的努力和精力才能建造起来。对于建立在不牢靠基础上的革命性未来，我们必须坚决有力地对它说“不”。