Thursday, 20. September 2007, 01:41:41
(本文转载自
《经济学人》中文版)
Inside the Googleplex
深入GOOGLE总部
Aug 30th 2007 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition
It is rare for a company to dominate its industry while claiming not to be motivated by money. Google does. But it has yet to face a crisis
很少有公司当取得市场的垄断地位后，宣称赚钱不是他们的主要目的。GOOGLE就是这样的公司。但它终究也要面对一场危机
IN AMERICA a phenomenon might claim to have entered mainstream culture only after it has been satirised on “The Simpsons”. Google has had that honour, and in a telling way. Marge Simpson types her name into Google's search engine and is amazed to get 629,000 results. (“And all this time I thought ‘googling yourself' meant the other thing.”) She then looks up her house on Google Maps, goes to “satellite view” and zooms in. To her horror, she sees Homer lying naked in a hammock outside. “Everyone can see you; get inside,” she yells out of the window, and the fumbling proceeds from there.
在美国，当一种现象出现在“the Simpsons”的讽刺剧中，这就证明它已经进入了主流社会。GOOGLE就是一个活生生的例子。剧中的Marge Simpson将她的名字输入GOOGLE中搜索，惊奇地发现得到629,000个结果。（当你将自己的名字输入GOOGLE的时候将是另外一种情况 了），随后她在GOOGLE中查询自己的房子并且得到卫星照片，将其放大后发现，HOMER竟然裸身躺在外面的吊床上：“进来！别人都在看你呢！”她对窗 外大声喊到。
And that, in a nutshell, sums up Google today: it dominates the internet and guides people everywhere, such as Marge, to the information they want. But it also increasingly frightens some users by making them feel that their privacy has been intruded upon (though Marge, technically, could not have seen Homer in real time, since Google's satellite pictures are not live). And it is making enemies in its own and adjacent industries. The grand moment of Marge googling herself, for example, was instantly available not only through Fox, the firm that created the animated television show, but also on YouTube, a video site owned by Google, after fans uploaded it in violation of copyright.
从这件小小的例子中，就可以看出当今的GOOGLE：它统治了互联网，能够让所有人在任何地方查询到所想要得到的任何作息，就如同MARGE一样，这同样 也让人们担心自己的隐私会轻易地被其他人查询到。（当然，这个MARGE并不可能现场看到HOMER正在做什么，因为GOOGLE的卫星照片并不是现场直 播的）GOOGLE伸向本行业及相关行业的手越来越长，当MARGE在GOOGLE查询自己名字的时候，剧情不仅可以通过FOX电视台上看到，同时也可以 通过YOUTUBE上看到。YOUTUBE已经成为GOOGLE旗下的视频网站。虽然我们网友大都明白上传电视剧是违反版权的。
Google evokes ambivalent feelings. Some users now keep their photos, blogs, videos, calendars, e-mail, news feeds, maps, contacts, social networks, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and credit-card information—in short, much of their lives—on Google's computers. And Google has plans to add medical records, location-aware services and much else. It may even buy radio spectrum in America so that it can offer all these services over wireless-internet connections.
因此大家对GOOGLE的感情可以说是喜忧掺半：好多用户将个人的照片、博客、视频、日历、电子邮件、定制的新闻、地图、联系人、社交圈子、文件、档案以 及演示稿甚至是信用卡的资料——总之他生活工作中的所有资料都可以输入到GOOGLE的存储系统中，GOOGLE的下一工作目标是将个人的医疗记录及位置 查询等服务也增加到自己的系统里，GOOGLE甚至有计划要拥有自己的空中频率，以便用户通过无线方式获得以上查询服务。
Google could soon, if it wanted, compile dossiers on specific individuals. This presents “perhaps the most difficult privacy issues in all of human history,” says Edward Felten, a privacy expert at Princeton University. Speaking for many, John Battelle, the author of a book on Google and an early admirer, recently wrote on his blog that “I've found myself more and more wary” of Google “out of some primal, lizard-brain fear of giving too much control of my data to one source.”
GOOGLE将在不久的将来对特定的用户进行档案记录。美国普林斯顿大学研究个人隐私方面的专家Edward Felten说：“这恐怕将会严重威胁到对个人隐私。”John Battelle的想法表达了相当一部分用户的担忧，他在博客中写到：“我越来越感到GOOGLE的可怕，个人的所有信息都被一个机构来控制的想法让我感 到不寒而栗。”John Battelle曾经是GOOGLE的早期推祟者，并曾经出版过一本有关GOOGLE的书。
Google itself has been genuinely taken aback by such sentiments. The Silicon Valley company, which trumpeted its corporate motto, “Don't be evil”, before its stockmarket listing in 2004, considers itself a force for good in the world, even in defiance of commercial logic. Its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt, its chief executive, have said explicitly and repeatedly that their biggest motivation is not to maximise profits but to improve the world.
GOOGLE因此也会有所收敛，因为在硅谷的公司大家都知道GOOGLE的口号是：“别做坏事！” 尽管GOOGLE在2004年上市，但公司的目标是服务于世界而不是单纯为了赢利，这也是它的创始人Larry Page 和Sergey Brin和它的现任CEO Eric Schmidt所一再强调的。
Too many sermons
太多的说教Such talk can make outsiders wince. Book and newspaper publishers, media companies such as Viacom, businesses which depend on Google's search rankings and a lengthening queue of others are tired of moralising sermons. Some feel their own livelihoods are threatened and are suing Google. Even some employees (called “Googlers”) or former employees (“Xooglers”) are cynical. Google is “arrogant” because it feels “invincible”, says a Xoogler who left to run a start-up firm. The internal attitude towards customers, rivals and partners is “you can't stop us” and “we will crush you”, he says. That “kinder, gentler” image is “mythology” and, he reckons, Google gets away with it only because of its impressively high share price.
以上总总言论让大家感到喜忧掺半，某些图书和报纸的发行者，例如Viacom及一些依赖GOOGLE搜索排名而生存的公司更是对GOOGLE的言论表示怀 疑；一些生存状况因GOOGLE而受到威胁的公司在法庭上对它进行起诉，甚至GOOGLE以前及现在的员工都对公司也表示出不满，GOOGLE的表现过于 “傲慢”，因为它总是认为自己在这个行业是”无敌”的。离开GOOGLE公司现自行创业的前员工这样描述GOOGLE：在GOOGLE的内部对客户、竟争 对手及合作伙伴的态度是“任何人不能阻挡我们，没有人可以成为我们的对手。”所谓的温和与友善的面孔只是GOOGLE的表面现象，原因是GOOGLE已经 在市场上占有垄断地位。
That share price has quintupled since 2004, making Google worth $160 billion. The company has not yet had its tenth birthday. Yet Piper Jaffray, an investment bank, expects it to have revenues of $16 billion and profits of $4.3 billion this year. With so much money pouring in sceptics say it is easy to ignore shareholders and talk about doing good instead of doing well. But what happens when earnings fall short of Wall Street expectations or some other disaster strikes? Yahoo! and other rivals have gone through such crises and been humbled. Google has not.
GOOGLE自从2004年上市以来，它的市值已经上涨了4倍，达到1600亿美元。而公司成立还不满10年，投资银行家Piper Jaffray,表示说：“GOOGLE今年的收入将达到160亿美元，而利润将会是43亿美元。”拥有如此多的钱，投资者认为GOOGLE今年已经做的 非常完美了，一旦有任何突发事情发生时，GOOGLE可以坦然应对吗？Yahoo及其他竟争对手都有过艰难的日子，但是GOOGLE一直都是一帆风顺。
Fifty cents at a time
一次50美分Google's success still comes from one main source: the small text ads placed next to its search results and on other web pages. The advertisers pay only when consumers click on those ads. “All that money comes 50 cents at a time,” says Hal Varian, Google's chief economist. For this success to continue, several things need to happen.
GOOGLE的成功主要来自于：广告栏与收费搜索项目。广告主只有在客户点击自己的文字广告时才需付费。GOOGLE的首席经济学家Hal Varian说： “一次是50美分。”而要继续违持这种成功需要俱备以下几个条件。
First, Google's share of web searches must remain stable. Thanks to its brand, this looks manageable. Google's share has steadily increased over the years. It was about 64% in America in July, according to Hitwise. That is almost three times the volume of its nearest rival, Yahoo!. In parts of Europe, India and Latin America, Google's share is even higher. Only in South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the Czech Republic does it trail local incumbents.
第一，GOOGLE需在搜索引擎领域保持稳固地位。由于GOOGLE的品牌效应，首席地位的保持显然无需担心。根据Hitwise公司的调查报告， GOOGLE到今年七月份在美国的市场份额是64％，是第二名YAHOO的3倍，而在欧洲部分国家、印度以及拉丁美洲，GOOGLE的市场份额甚至更高； 只有在韩国、日本、中国、俄罗斯以及捷克等国GOOGLE的市场份额还不敌本地的竟争对手。
Second, Google must maintain or improve the efficiency with which it puts ads next to searches. And here its dominance is most impressive. In a recent analysis by Alan Rimm-Kaufman, a marketing consultant, it took a whopping 73% of the budgets of companies that advertise on search engines (versus 21% and 6%, respectively, for Yahoo! and Microsoft). It charged more for each click, thanks to its bigger network of advertisers and more competitive online auctions. And it had far higher “click-through rates”, because it made these ads more relevant and useful, so that web users click on them more often.
第二，GOOGLE必须要保持它检索的工作效率。这一点非常重要，根据市场调研人员Alan Rimm-Kaufman的一份近期报告显示：有73％的公司将搜索预算投在GOOGLE 上（而对YAHOO和Microsoft的投入分别是21％和6％），由于日益增加的广告主和更具竟争性的拍卖，因此点击费用也在增加；而且由于广告的点 击率与实际成交比例增加，所以形成被网络用户更多使用的良性循环。
Perhaps most tellingly, advertisers do better with Google. Mr Rimm-Kaufman found that Google's ads “converted” more often into actual sales, which tended to be larger than those originating from Yahoo! or Microsoft. This is astonishing, given that Yahoo! has just spent a year on an all-out effort, codenamed Panama, to close precisely these gaps.
更重要的是，维系广告主与GOOGLE更加良好的合作关系。 Rimm-Kaufman发现GOOGLE相比于YAHOO与Microsoft来说广告更容易产生实际的销售量。因此YAHOO花费了一年的时间发起了 一个代号为Panama的行动，其目地是为了可以赶上GOOGLE。
But even lucrative “pay-per-click” has limits, so Google is moving into other areas. It is trying (pending an antitrust inquiry) to buy DoubleClick, a firm that specialises in the other big online-advertising market, so-called “branded” display or banner ads (for which each view, rather than each click, is charged for). And Google now brokers ads on traditional radio stations, television channels and in newspapers of the dead-tree sort.
依靠点击付费的赢利方式也具有它的局限性，因此GOOGLE也在试图寻求其他发展方向。GOOGLE正在计划收购一家DoubleClick的公司（但是 此次的收购行为正在受到市场反垄断机构的调查），这家公司专注于旗帜广告在线领域（旗帜广告的收费模式是根据显示的频率而不是点击率。）同时GOOGLE 也代理在传统媒体（如广播、报纸、电视的广告业务）的广告经营。
Sceptics point out that with each such expansion, Google red uces its profit margins, because it must share more of the revenues with others. If a web surfer clicks on a text ad placed by Google on a third-party blog, for instance, Google must share the revenue with the blogger. If Google places ads in newspapers or on radio stations, it must share the revenues with the publisher or broadcaster.
对于GOOGLE的每一次扩张，相关人士都有不同的看法。他们认为由于GOOGLE与其他方面的合作将会削弱GOOGLE的利润。例如：当一个用户点击一 个放在第三方博客的广告时，GOOGLE就必须将其部分收入分配给这位博客本人，当GOOGLE 代理报纸或者电台的广告时，也必须将部分收入分给后者。
Yet Google does not look at it that way. Its costs are mostly fixed, so any incremental revenue is profit. It makes good sense for Google to push into television and other markets, says Mr Varian. Even if Google gets only one cent for each viewer (compared with an average of 50 cents for each click on the web), that cent carries no variable cost and is thus pure profit.
然尔GOOGLE本身对此有不同的看法。他们认为GOOGLE的成本是固定的，因此有收入就是增加利润。Varian谈到：GOOGLE将业务扩展到电视 或者其他市场的行为，对GOOGLE都是有利的，相比于网络上的每一次点击50美分的收入来说，即使每一次只能获得一美分的收入，对它来讲也是纯利。
The machinery that represents the fixed costs is Google's secret sauce. Google has built, in effect, the world's largest supercomputer. It consists of vast clusters of servers, spread out in enormous datacentres around the world. The details are Google's best-guarded secret. But the result, explains Bill Coughran, a top engineer at Google, is to provide a “cloud” of computing power that is flexible enough “automatically to move load around between datacentres”. If, for example, there is unexpected demand for Gmail, Google's e-mail service, the system instantly allocates more processors and storage to it, without the need for human intervention.
GOOGLE的秘密武器便是它的硬件设施，GOOGLE现在已经建立了目前世界上最大的超级计算机系统，由不同的服务器组成，运行着巨大的数据中心，数据 也是GOOGLE最核心的商业机密，GOOGLE的核心工程师Bill Coughran谈到：“此系统也为GOOGLE在不同的数据之间自动转移负荷。”例如，当Gmail的访问量激增时，系统就会自动地配置更多的处理器提 高处理速度并且提供更大的存储空间。
This infrastructure means that Google can launch any new service at negligible cost or risk. If it fails, fine; if it succeeds, the cloud makes room for it. Thus Google can redefine its goals almost on a whim. Its official strategy recently became “search, ads, and apps”—the addition being the apps (ie, software applications). Sure enough, after a string of acquisitions, Google now offers a complete alternative to Microsoft's entrenched Office suite of programs, all accessible through any web browser. A new technology, called Google Gears, will make these applications usable even when there is no internet connection. And Google is hawking these applications not only to consumers but also to companies. Ultimately it does so because, thanks to its supercomputer, it can.
GOOGLE拥有以上硬件设施，意味着GOOGLE可以在不增加任何成本的条件下提供其他客户服务，即使这些服务失败也没有问题，若成功了就可以将资料存 储起来。GOOGLE可以快速进行转型，它近期的官方战略定位是“搜索，广告与应用程序”。应用程序也就是软件系统，它是通过一系列的收购来获得的。现 在，GOOGLE提供可以替换Microsoft的办公软件，而且这些都可以通过浏览器来实现，一种被叫做Google Gears的新技术，甚至可以通过无线的方式来应用办公软件。而且GOOGLE目前不仅仅是针对个人用户，也在锁定企业用户，通过它超级计算机系统，相信 GOOGLE最终可以实现这个目标。
With Google's cashflow and infrastructure, the freedom to do anything it fancies gives rise to constant rumours. Often, these are outrageous. It used to be conventional wisdom that Google would build cheap personal computers for poor countries. This turned out to be nonsense, because Google does not want to make hardware. Now there is talk of a “Gphone” handset. This is also unlikely because Google is more interested in software and services, and does not want to alienate allies in the handset industry—including Apple, which shares board directors with Google and uses Google software on its iPhone.
GOOGLE拥有雄厚的财力及它超强的硬件设施，它可以完成任何的工作。有传闻讲GOOGLE将会为贫困国家生产廉价PC，显然这种传闻是不切实际的，因 为GOOGLE并不想涉足硬件领域；现在又有传闻GOOGLE想要开发“Gphone”的手机，这显然也不太可能，因为GOOGLE只对软件方面有兴趣。 而且它与Apple一直有着良好的合作关系。Apple在它的iPhone上应用的是GOOGLE软件技术。
Sometimes the rumours are both outrageous and true. Google is experimenting with new ways of bringing broadband connections to consumers, by blanketing parts of Silicon Valley with Wi-Fi networks. It is planning to enter an auction for valuable radio spectrum in America, and thinking of radically new business models to make money from wireless data and voice networks, perhaps a free service supported by ads.
有些传闻也是半真半假，GOOGLE正在试图开发一种新的宽带连接，以此融合了Wi-Fi系统，目地是进入美国无线拍卖行业，通过由广告商付费的模式来为用户免费提供无线数据与声音系统的服务。
If it goes wrong, how?
如果出问题了，怎么办？Beyond its attempts to expand into new markets, the big question is how Google will respond if its stunning success is interrupted. “It's axiomatic that companies eventually have crises,” says Mr Schmidt. And history suggests that “tech companies that are dominant have trouble from within, not from competitors.” In Google's case, he says, “I worry about the scaling of the company.” Google has been hiring “Nooglers” (new Googlers) at a breathtaking rate. In June 2004 it had 2,292 staff; this June the number had reached 13,786.
除了进军新的领域外，对GOOGLE来说所面临的更艰巨的问题是如何来维持永远的辉煌，Schmidt说：“公司面临危机是难免的，尤其对于技术型的公司 来说，危机往往来自于公司内部，而不是竟争对手。对于GOOGLE来说，我更担心的是由于规模扩张所引发的问题。”自从2004年6月以来，GOOGLE 的员工人数在飞速增长，从当时的2291人现已增长到现在的13786。
Its ability to get all these people has been a competitive weapon, since Google can afford to hire talent pre-emptively, making it unavailable to Microsoft and Yahoo!. Google tends to win talent wars because its brand is sexier and its perks are fantastically lavish. Googlers commute on discreet shuttle buses (equipped with wireless broadband and running on biodiesel, naturally) to and from the head office, or “Googleplex”, which is a photogenic playground of lava lamps, volleyball courts, swimming pools, free and good restaurants, massage rooms and so forth.
能够获得这些人才也是一种优势，GOOGLE有实力留住人才，因此也就垄断了此领域的人才市场。由于GOOGLE在市场上的辉煌形象，对人才也更具吸引 力。GOOGLE员工坐在看上去不起眼的班车上班（其实是安装了无线宽带与环保节能社备），公司的总部“Googleplex”灯火通明，拥有排球场、游 泳池、按摩房及免费餐厅等设施。
Yet for some on the inside, it can look different. One former executive, now suing Google over her treatment, says that the firm's personnel department is “collapsing” and that “absolute chaos” reigns. When she was hired, nobody knew when or where she was supposed to work, and the balloons that all Nooglers get delivered to their desks ended up God knows where. She started receiving detailed e-mails “enforcing” Google's outward informality by reminding her that high heels and jewellery were inappropriate. Before the corporate ski trip, it was explained that “if you wear fur, they will kill you.”
但是透过公司内部，可能你会听到不同的声音。一位曾任职GOOGLE高层的人士讲：“公司的人力部门一团糟。”当她第一天上班时，根本没有人告诉她在哪里 或者是何时工作；她被告知在公司里穿高跟鞋与佩带首饰是不合适的；在参加公司组织的一次滑雪活动前她被告知：“如果穿着皮草服装，你就死定了。”
Google is a paradise only for some, she argues. Employees who predate the IPO resemble aristocracy. Engineers get the most kudos, people with other functions decidedly less so. Bright kids just out of college tend to love it, because the Googleplex in effect replaces their university campus—with a dating scene, a laundry service and no reason to leave at weekends. Older Googlers with families tend to like it less, because “everybody, even young mums, works seven days a week.”
她还讲到，GOOGLE并不是完美无缺，在公司上市前就服务于公司的老员工被视做公司的“贵族”；相对于其他部门的员工，公司的工程师地位更加显赫。就 GOOGLE总部设计而言，更加适合于刚毕业的大学生，因为它更象大学的校园——有着约会的场所、洗衣房，可以长时间呆在里面；而对于已有家庭的员工来说 并不喜欢，因为几乎在里面工作的每一个人，即使是刚刚做了妈妈的女员工也要负荷着每周七天的工作量。
Another Xoogler, who held a senior position, says that by trying to create a “Utopia” of untrammelled creativity, Google ended up with “dystopia”. As is its wont, Google has composed a rigorous algorithmic approach to hiring, based on grade-point averages, college rankings and endless logic puzzles on whiteboards. This “genetic engineering of their workforce,” he says, means that “everybody there is a rocket scientist, so everybody is also insecure” and the back-stabbing and politics are reminiscent of an average university's English department.
另一个曾任GOOGLE高层的员工透露，表面辉煌的GOOGLE并不是人间的天堂，GOOGLE有自己严格的招聘程序，这其中要根据你的成绩及学校的排 名，还有没完没了的数学罗辑难题，他说：“在这里都是以导弹专家的水准来要求员工，所以人人都缺乏安全感。”公司内部的人际关系也纷繁复杂。
Then there is the question of what all these people are supposed to do. “We kind of like the chaos,” says Laszlo Bock, the personnel boss. “Creativity comes out of people bumping into each other and not knowing where to go.” The most famous expression of this is the “20% time”. In theory, all Googlers, down to receptionists, can spend one-fifth of their time exploring any new idea. Good stuff has indeed come out of this, including Google News, Gmail, and even those commuter shuttles and their Wi-Fi systems. But it is not clear that the company as a whole is more innovative as a result, as it claims. It still has only one proven revenue source and most big innovations, such as YouTube, Google Earth and the productivity applications, have come through acquisitions.
那么公司究竟需要员工做什么呢？公司人力资源部总监Laszlo Bock说：“我们需要公司内部的某种混乱，因为创造力来自于无所适从和人与人间的相互碰撞。”这就是著名的20％时间理论：即使是GOOGLE前台的接 待员都运用20％的理论来发明与创新。包括Google News，Gmail和其他很多方面都是公司的发明产物。事实上，GOOGLE并非如他们所讲的那样，因为公司主要的收入来源和其他几个重要的发明（包括 YouTube, Google Earth和办公软件等）都是来自于收购其他公司来完成的。
In practice, the 20% time works out to be 120% time, says another Xoogler, “since nobody really gets around to those projects for all their other work.” The chances of ideas being executed, he adds, “are basically zero.” What happens to the many Googlers whose ideas are rejected? Once their share options are fully vested they consider leaving. The same phenomenon changed Microsoft in the 1980s, when allegedly T-shirts popped up saying FYIFV (“Fuck you, I'm fully vested”). Already some are going to even “cooler” start-ups, such as Facebook or Twitter.
一位前GOOGLE的雇员谈到：“ 20％时间论实际上是120％时间论，因为没有人能够在正常工作时间内完成高额的工作量，某些想法得到实施的机会理论上来说是零。”当想法被拒绝的时候， 他们会如何面对呢？一旦他们的股票期权已满，他们就会考虑离开公司。在上世纪80年代，Microsoft也出现同样的现象，当时流行一种印有 “FYIFV”（意思是：妈的！我的期权终于满了）的T恤。这种现象同样也正发生在更年轻的公司Facebook 和Twitter身上。
This week George Reyes, Google's finance chief, said he would retire. At 53, he is a multi-millionaire. Mr Reyes has maintained the company's policy of not providing guidance to Wall Street on future earnings, although his comments on growth prospects have moved its share price.
在本周，GOOGLE的首席财务官宣布退休，做为53岁的他已成为千万富翁，虽然在他离任前他已成功地将公司的股份推上了新高，他对外声明不会对华尔街说公司的前景发表任何看法。
As Nick Leeson was to Barings...
当Nick Leeson在Barings银行的时候 Besides the slow risk of calcification that comes with growth, there is also the risk that Nooglers will dilute Google's un-evil values. Worse, Google might inadvertently pick up a rogue employee, as the late Barings Bank notoriously did with Nick Leeson. Indeed, Google is fast becoming something like a bank, but one that keeps information rather than money. This applies equally to its rivals, but Google is accumulating treasure fastest. Peter Fleischer, Google's privacy boss, argues that the risk of a malicious or negligent employee leaking or compromising the data, and thus the privacy of users, is minimal because only a “tiny” number of engineers have access to the databases and everything they do is recorded.
虽然公司面临整体危机的可能性不大，但是新加入GOOGLE的人员能否尊循GOOGLE的价值观还有待检验。GOOGLE可能会选到象Barings银行 的Nick Leeson似的人物，GOOGLE迅速成长越来越像个“信息”银行，同样GOOGLE的竟争对手也不例外，但是GOOGLE财富积累的速度更快。负责 GOOGLE信息系统安全部的总监Peter Fleischer说：“由于员工的无意或者有意所造成的信息泄露应该不会对公司造成大的问题，因为只有少部分员工有资格进入公司的数据库，他们所做的只 是信息存储的工作。”
But the privacy problem is much subtler than that. As Google compiles more information about individuals, it faces numerous trade-offs. At one extreme it could use a person's search history and advertising responses in combination with, say, his location and the itinerary in his calendar, to serve increasingly useful and welcome search results and ads. This would also allow Google to make money from its many new services. But it could scare users away. As a warning, Privacy International, a human-rights watchdog in London, has berated Google, charging that its attitude to privacy “at its most blatant is hostile, and at its most benign is ”.
但是关于数据信息的保密性依旧是敏感话题，GOOGLE保存了大量的个人信息，这就面临着取舍的问题，一方面来讲，GOOGLE可以通过用户的搜索记录包 括点击广告的情况、地理位置及工作日程表的情况来判断市场需求并加以分析，借此为用户提供新服务创造机会与利润，但是同时也引发GOOGLE用户的恐惧， 一家位于伦敦的观察组织Privacy International对GOOGLE对待个人隐私的态度提出批评。认为它是“明目张胆地视之为眼中钉，最无伤大雅的时候是含糊不清。”
At the other extreme, Google could decide not to make money from some services—in effect, to provide them as a public benefit—and to destroy data about its users. This would make its services less useful but also less intrusive and dangerous.
从另一个角度来说，GOOGLE选择对一些服务免费，并且不保存用户的信息，虽然这样做会使它的使用性降低，但却保护了用户的隐私安全。
In reality, the balance must be struck somewhere in between. Messrs Schmidt, Page and Brin have had many meetings on the subject and have made several changes in recent months. First, says Mr Fleischer, Google has committed itself to “anonymising” the search logs on its servers after 18 months—roughly as banks cross out parts of a credit-card number, say. This would mean that search histories cannot be traced to any specific computer. Second, Google says that the bits of software called “cookies”, which store individual preferences on users' own computers, will expire every two years.
实际上，如何平衡客户资料隐私的安全及实现搜索高效性确实是个两难问题。公司高层Messrs Schmidt, Page与Brin就此问题多次召开会议并进行改进。Fleische说到：“第一，GOOGLE保存在服务器上的搜索标签在保存18个月后会自动消除， 就如银行注销信用卡信息一样，这就意味着搜索的历史记录不会长久保存在电脑记录上。第二历史记录在cookies内会在两年内自动消除。”
Not everybody is impressed. The server logs will still exist for 18 months. And the cookies of “active” users will be automatically renewed upon expiry. This includes everybody who searches on Google, which in effect means most internet users. Then there is the matter of all that other information, such as e-mail and documents, that users might keep in Google's “cloud”. Mr Schmidt points out that such users by definition “opt in”, since they log in. They can opt out at any time.
但并不是所有人对此感到满意，毕竟个人搜索标签还是会有18个月的保存时间，存储在cookies里的信息会在到期前自动更新，这包括所有在GOOGLE 上搜索用户。这样就会留下EMAIL或者文档信息。Schmidt指出：“当此类用户登陆时就会留下自己的信息，却不能删除自己的使用信息。”
As things stand today, Google has little to worry about. Most users continue to google with carefree abandon. The company faces lawsuits, but those are more of a nuisance than a threat. It dominates its rivals in the areas that matter, the server cloud is ready for new tasks and the cash keeps flowing. In such a situation, anybody can claim to be holier than money. The test comes when the good times end. At that point, shareholders will demand trade-offs in their favour and consumers might stop believing that Google only ever means well
时到今日，一切都还在正常进行。GOOGLE还无需太多担心；绝大多数的用户正在愉快地使用GOOGLE;虽然GOOGLE正在面临法律诉讼，但目前问题并不大。相对于它的竟争对手，GOOGLE还是处于遥遥领先的位置；服务器还能够为新的服务提供更大的存储空间，赢利也不是问题。在这种情况下，任何人都会显得尤为圣洁，但是总有旦夕祸福，从这点来看，GOOGLE也不会永远辉煌，或许将来的某天，投资者自然会有自己的选择。
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