Eric Schmidt veers between the defensive and the philosophical when describing how Google is coping with the constant eruption of controversy over its handling of privacy, copyright and other tricky public policy issues.
谷歌(Google)对隐私、版权及其它棘手公共政策问题的处理，不断引发争议。对此，该公司首席执行官埃里克•施密特(Eric Schmidt)有时处于守势，有时又颇为达观。
“Whack-a-mole is our life,” says the youthful-looking 55-year-old chief executive of the world's most powerful and profitable internet company, based in Mountain View, California. “We are simply the symbol of the question of public and private behaviour, and special interests and narrow interests.”
他说：“打地鼠是我们的生活。我们仅仅是公共与私人行为、以及特殊利益和狭隘利益问题的表征。”今年55岁、但看上去更年轻的他，执掌着总部位于加州山景城(Mountain View)的全球最强大、最赚钱的互联网公司。
In an hour-long interview at Google's London headquarters, Mr Schmidt set out why he believed Google had attracted charges of arrogance and insensitivity, notably in the recent case involving the interception of data collected via its Street View service from unsecured WiFi connections.
在谷歌伦敦总部的一小时采访中，施密特阐述了自己认为谷歌招致“傲慢”及“感觉迟钝”指责的原因，尤其是最近其街景(Street View)服务从未加密的WiFi连接上截取数据的事件。
“Google is big and Google is disruptive by design. We are trying to do things that are new and when you disrupt things, the people who are being disrupted complain. We are in the information business and everyone has an opinion about information. But the laws [covering these areas] are inconsistent.”
“谷歌规模庞大，而且从设计上就具有‘扰乱性'。我们努力做一些新的事情，而当你扰乱了现状时，被扰乱的人就会抱怨。我们从事信息业务，每个人对信息都有自己的见解。但（适用于这些领域）的法律缺乏连贯性。”