[英中對譯] Sharing Everything Online 隱私拋腦後 上網盡情分享

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隱私拋腦後 上網盡情分享
2010/05/13
Sharing Everything Online

【By BRAD STONE／陳世欽譯】

SAN FRANCISCO — Mark Brooks wants the whole Web to know that he spent $41 on an iPad case at an Apple store, $24 eating at an Applebee’s, and $6,450 at a Florida plastic surgery clinic for nose work.

布魯克斯要讓整個網路世界都知道，他在一家蘋果電腦專賣店以41美元買了一個平板電腦iPad的保護套，以24美元在一家Applebee餐廳吃了一頓，另以6450美元的代價在佛羅里達州的一家整形外科診所做了鼻部整形手術。

Too much information, you say? On the Internet, there seems to be no such thing. A wave of Web start-ups aims to help people indulge their urge to divulge — from sites like Blippy, which Mr. Brooks used to broadcast news of what he bought, to Foursquare, a mobile social network that allows people to announce their precise location to the world, to Skimble, an iPhone application that people use to reveal, say, how many push-ups they are doing and how long they spend in yoga class.

你覺得訊息太多了嗎？網路世界似乎沒這回事。許多相繼興起的新網站號稱以協助人們享受分享的樂趣為宗旨，包括布魯克斯用以公開個人購物內容的 Blippy，可供網友向全世界公布他們確切所在位置的行動社交網站Foursquare，還有人們可用來公布自己已經做了幾下伏地挺身，以及在瑜珈教室待多久的iPhone應用功能Skimble。

Not that long ago, many were leery of using their real names on the Web, let alone sharing potentially embarrassing personal details about their shopping and lifestyle habits. But these startups are exploiting a mood of online openness, despite possible hidden dangers.

就在不久之前，許多人還不願意在網路上使用真名，更別說與別人分享個人購物及生活習慣等可能令人尷尬的細節。這些新網站利用的是網上資訊開放的氛圍，儘管上網公開資訊可能隱含著風險。

“People are not necessarily thinking about how long this information will stick around, or how it could be used and exploited by marketers,” said Chris Conley, a technology and civil liberties fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union.

美國公民自由聯盟的科技及公民自由研究員康利說：「人們不見得會考慮到這些訊息會在網路上流傳多久，或者這些訊息是否可能被行銷人員利用。」

The spirit of sharing has already run into some roadblocks. Amazon.com was so wary of the security ramifications of Blippy’s idea of letting consumers post everything they bought that, for several months, it blocked the site from allowing people to publish their Amazon purchases.

分享的精神已經碰到一些障礙。亞馬遜購物網站擔心Blippy讓消費者透過它公布購物內容所涉及的安全問題，過去幾個月一直阻止它公布網友向亞馬遜購物的內容。

In March, Blippy sidestepped Amazon by asking its customers for access to their Gmail accounts, and then took the purchase data from the receipts Amazon had e-mailed them. Blippy says thousands of its users have supplied the keys to their e-mail accounts.

今年3月，Blippy避開亞馬遜，要求它的消費者提供Gmail帳號，再根據亞馬遜寄出的電子收據取得購物訊息。Blippy表示，已有數千用戶向它提供了開啟電子郵件帳戶的必備資料。

There is no way to quantify the number of these start-ups, but they are the rage among venture capitalists. Although some doubt whether the sites will gain true mainstream popularity — and whether they will make any money — the entrepreneurs involved think they are on to something.

這些新網站的數量無從統計，不過它們已在創投界掀起一股熱潮。部分人士認為，這些網站能否成為主流及賺錢值得懷疑，投入其中的企業家卻認為，這門生意很有搞頭。

Blippy, which opened last fall, was the first to introduce the notion of publishing credit card and other purchases. Recently it attracted around 125,000 visitors and closed an investment round of $11 million from venture capitalists. It hopes to make money by, among other things, taking a commission when people are inspired to imitate their friends’ purchases posted on the site.

去年秋天開張的Blippy率先推出公布以信用卡及其他方式消費內容的概念，最近約吸引12.5萬名網友瀏覽，並敲定一筆1100萬美元的創投投資案。它希望當人們有意模仿朋友透過該網站公布的購物行為時，它就可以開始抽佣賺錢。

The people behind Swipely, a site soon to arrive and similar to Blippy, are also optimistic.

Swipely的性質類似Blippy，近期內就會正式運作。它的幕後推手同樣樂觀。

“We will help people discover a great restaurant or movie through their friends and make it easy to recommend their own purchases,” said Angus Davis, 32, a veteran of Netscape and Microsoft who is testing Swipely with a small group. “I really believe that the lens of your friends is fast becoming the most powerful way to discover things on the Internet.”

32歲的戴維斯是網景及微軟的資深員工，目前正與一小群夥伴一起測試Swipely，他說：「我們會幫助網友透過他們的好友找到一家很棒的餐廳或一部好電影，而且可以很輕鬆的提供自己的購物建議。我真的相信，你朋友們的眼光很快就會變成你在網路上發現各種事物的最有力工具。」

Mr. Brooks, a 38-year-old consultant for online dating Web sites, seems to be a perfect customer. He publishes his travel schedule on Dopplr. His DNA profile is available on 23andMe. And on Blippy, he makes public all he spends with his credit card, along with his spending at Netflix, iTunes and Amazon.com.

38歲的布魯克斯是許多約會網站的顧問，似乎是完美的顧客。他透過Dopplr公布自己的旅行行程，在23andMe上公布個人的DNA檔案，另外又經由 Blippy公布個人信用卡的每一筆消費，以及在Netflix、iTune、亞馬遜的消費內容。

“It’s very important to me to push out my character and hopefully my good reputation as far as possible, and that means being open,” he said, dismissing any privacy concerns by adding, “I simply have nothing to hide.”

他說：「盡量向外介紹自己的人格特質，希望也能同時盡量介紹自己的好口碑，對我來說非常重要。這意味開放。」他駁斥關於隱私的疑慮。他說：「我並無不可告人之事。」

To Silicon Valley’s deep thinkers, this is all part of one big trend: People are becoming more relaxed about privacy, having come to recognize that publicizing little pieces of information about themselves can result in serendipitous conversations — and little jolts of ego gratification.

對矽谷的嚴謹思想家而言，這是一種大趨勢的一環：人們對於隱私已經變得更釋懷。他們發現，透過網路公布個人小小的訊息往往帶來令人意外驚喜的對話，以及小小的自我滿足。

Still, only two years ago, Facebook members rebelled when the site introduced its notorious Beacon service, which published members’ online transactions back to the site — essentially the same concept as Blippy and Swipely. But there is the worry about identity theft.

儘管如此，社交網站臉書在距今不久的2年前推出風評不佳的Beacon服務時，曾引起會員的強烈反彈，因為它會在臉書公布會員的線上交易資料。這種概念其實與Blippy、Swipely相同。然而其中涉及盜用身分的疑慮。

“Ten years ago, people were afraid to buy stuff online. Now they’re sharing everything they buy,” said Barry Borsboom, a student at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who this year created an intentionally provocative site called Please Rob Me. The site collected and published Foursquare updates that indicated when people were out socializing — and therefore away from their homes.

荷蘭雷登大學學生波士鮑姆今年推出刻意具有挑釁意味的網站Please Rob Me（請搶劫我）。他說：「10年前，人們不敢上網購物。如今，他們已經樂於與別人分享網路購物經驗。」這個網站蒐集並公布Foursquare的更新資料，使網友得以掌握會員外出參加社交活動，因而不在家的時間。

“Times are changing, and most people might not know where the dangers lie,” Mr. Borsboom said.

波士鮑姆說：「時代不斷改變。多數的人也許不知道危險何在。」

【2010-05-11/聯合報/G9版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS】