Question

    The power and ambition of the giants of the digital economy is astonishing — Amazon has just announced the purchase of the upmarket grocery chain Whole Foods for $13.5bn, but two years ago Facebook paid even more than that to acquire the WhatsApp messaging service, which doesn’t have any physical product at all. What WhatsApp offered Facebook was an intricate and finely detailed web of its users’ friendships and social lives.

Facebook promised the European commission then that it would not link phone numbers to Facebook identities, but it broke the promise almost as soon as the deal went through. Even without knowing what was in the messages, the knowledge of who sent them and to whom was enormously revealing and still could be. What political journalist, what party whip, would not want to know the makeup of the WhatsApp groups in which Theresa May’s enemies are currently plotting? It may be that the value of Whole Foods to Amazon is not so much the 460 shops of owns, but the records of which customers have purchased what.

Competition law appears to be the only way to address these imbalances of power. But it is clumsy. For one thing, it is very slow compared to the pace of change within the digital economy. By the time a problem has been addressed and remedied it may have vanished in the marketplace, to be replaced by new abuses of power. But there is a deeper conceptual problem, too. Competition law as presently interpreted deals with financial disadvantage to consumers and this is not obvious when the users of these services don’t pay for them. The users of their services are not their customers. That would be the people who buy advertising from them — and Facebook and Google, the two virtual giants, dominate digital advertising to the disadvantage of all other media and entertainment companies.

The product they’re selling is data, and we, the users, convert our lives to data for the benefit of the digital giants. Just as some ants farm the bugs called aphids for the honeydew they produce when they feed, so Google farms us for the data that our digital lives yield. Ants keep enemy insects away from where their aphids (蚜虫) feed; Gmail keeps the spammers out of our inboxes. It doesn't feel like a human or democratic relationship, even if both sides benefit.

1.According to Paragraph1, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for its________.

A.digital products B.user information

C.physical assets D.quality service

2.Linking phone numbers to Facebook identities may________.

A.worsen political disputes B.mess up customer records

C.pose a risk to Facebook users D.mislead the European commission

3.Competition law as presently interpreted can hardly protect Facebook users because________.

A.they are no defined as customers B.they are not financially reliable

C.these services are generally digital D.the services are paid for by advertisers

4.The ants analogy is used to illustrate_________.

A.a win-win business model between digital giants

B.a typical competition pattern among digital giants

C.the benefits provided for digital giants' customers

D.the relationship between digital giants and their users

Answer

1.B

2.C

3.D

4.D

【解析】

本文是一篇说明文。数字经济的巨人权力和野心是令人惊讶的——Amazon刚刚宣布购买高档食品链的Whole Foods为135亿美元，但两年前Facebook甚至比获得WhatsApp消息传递服务更多，它没有任何实体产品。WhatsApp为Facebook提供的是一个复杂而精细的用户友谊和社交生活网络。

1.细节理解题。根据第一段中的What WhatsApp offered Facebook was an intricate and finely detailed web of its users’ friendships and social lives.可知，WhatsApp提供给Facebook的是一个复杂和精细化的用户朋友圈和社交生活网络。由此可知， Facebook获得了WhatsApp的用户信息。故选B。

2.推理判断题。根据第二段中的Facebook promised the European commission then that it would not link phone numbers to Facebook identities, but it broke the promise almost as soon as the deal went through. Even without knowing what was in the messages, the knowledge of who sent them and to whom was enormously revealing and still could be.可知，Facebook当时向欧盟委员会承诺，不会将电话号码与Facebook的身份联系起来，但几乎在交易达成后不久，它就违背了这一承诺。即使不知道这些信息中有什么，但知道是谁发送了这些信息，以及对谁发送这些信息的信息是非常有启发性的，而且仍然是可能的。由此推知，将电话号码与Facebook身份联系起来可能会给Facebook用户带来风险。故选C。

3.推理判断题。根据第三段中的Competition law as presently interpreted deals with financial disadvantage to consumers and this is not obvious when the users of these services don’t pay for them. The users of their services are not their customers.可知，目前所解释的竞争法涉及对消费者的财务不利，而当这些服务的用户不为这些服务付费时，这一点并不明显。他们服务的用户不是他们的客户。由此推知，竞争法很难保护Facebook的用户，因为这些服务是由广告商付费的。故选D。

4.推理判断题。根据最后一段中The product they’re selling is data, and we, the users, convert our lives to data for the benefit of the digital giants. Just as some ants farm the bugs called aphids for the honeydew they produce when they feed, so Google farms us for the data that our digital liver yield.可知，他们销售的产品是数据，而我们，用户，为了数字巨头的利益，将我们的生活转化为数据。就像一些蚂蚁养殖蚜虫来获取它们进食时产生的蜜露一样，谷歌养殖我们来获取我们的数字生活产生的数据。由此可知，此处用蚂蚁来比喻数字巨人和他们的用户之间的关系。故选D。