谷歌、Facebook的“赔款算盘”

    电子前沿基金会（Electronic Frontier Foundation，EFF）是美国在数码版权方面最知名的非营利组织。如果我告诉你，这个组织去年向外披露，它从谷歌公司（Google）那里获得了整整100万美元的资助——大约是该组织总收入的17%，有些人可能会大惊失色。因为电子前沿基金会称自己是一个“由会员资助”的组织。而且像大多数非营利组织一样，它也很珍惜身份独立、不参与商业争端和关注公众利益的光环和名声。

    事实上，谷歌去年的确把100万美元转到了电子前沿基金会的户头上。这笔钱并不属于企业捐赠，电子前沿基金会也不必把它报告成企业捐赠。而且假如电子前沿基金会今年又从Facebook那里获得了100万美元的话，这笔钱也同样不必报告成企业捐赠——而且Facebook也正打算掏这笔钱。这是因为谷歌和Facebook都成了集体诉讼案的被告，这两笔钱是奉法院之命支付的调解费。

    读者可能会想：“这笔钱当然不是捐赠！而且恰恰相反，这笔钱是因为有人针对他们提起诉讼，因此在法院强制下被迫支付给对方的费用。”其实这也不是故事的全貌。电子前沿基金会在相关案件的诉讼上并没有扮演任何角色，是谷歌和Facebook自己选择了EFF作为调解费的受益人。

    这笔一半是罚款、一半是自愿捐赠性质的费用被称为“近似罚金”（cy presawards，cy pres一词来自法语，意为“近似合理”——译注）。这种惩罚机制的理论是这样的：在判决中，原告律师与被告均同意，把赔偿款支付给实际受到侵害者没有可行性，因为分到每名受侵害者头上的金额太小了，无法保证这笔费用的分配。因此，原、被告均同意不向受侵害者群体做出赔偿，而是向慈善机构支付一定数额的金钱，以此作为次优选择。因为慈善机构间接地通过与本案有关的某些方式，促进了受侵害者群体的相关利益。

    谷歌和Facebook之所以要支付这笔钱，就是因为有人控告这两家公司涉嫌侵犯了用户的隐私权。在谷歌一案中，谷歌涉嫌在2010年2月布Google Buzz社交网络时暴露了用户的电子邮件。而Facebook则涉嫌在2011年2月推出所谓的“赞助故事”广告时，在没有获得用户明确许可的情况下，利用了用户（包括未成年人）的身份信息用于广告用途。在这两起官司中，还有21个其他的非营利机构也获得了、或即将或得近似罚金。不过电子前沿基金会仍然是其中最大的赢家，独自获得了1,610万美元罚金中的12%。（Google Buzz一案在2011年5月已尘埃落定，但Facebook一案直到今年6月才提交法庭，而且现在仍在受到不同意见者的挑战。）

    两起案件的原、被告双方均认为，向电子前沿基金会支付近似罚金是合理的，因为数码隐私问题恰好是这个基金会监督的问题之一。而且电子前沿基金会因为隐私和侵权问题斥责谷歌与Facebook的次数也着实不少了（虽说它从来没有针对这两家公司提起过诉讼），另外它也一直在声援网络隐私立法，而且它支持的隐私政策也一向是谷歌和Facebook所反对的。

    然而与此同时，在用户生成的侵权内容方面（比如盗版电影、照片或音乐），电子前沿基金会的态度通常与谷歌和Facebook是一致的，都不赞成版权所有人向传播方追究连带责任。可能就是因为这些原因，谷歌曾在2010年向电子前沿基金会纯粹自愿地捐赠了2.5万美金，在2011年又捐赠了1.8万美金。

    事实上，在谷歌与Facebook这两起案件中，至少一半以上获得近似罚金的非营利机构今年可能都或多或少地从谷歌和Facebook那里获得过一些捐赠，其中有些机构可能与这两家公司没有任何官司纠葛。比如民主与科技中心（the Center for Democracy and Technology，CDT）去年从Google Buzz一案中获得了50万美元的近似罚金，前年则从谷歌那里获得了34万美元的自愿捐助。现在它还有望从Facebook那里获得100万美元的近似罚金，而Facebook自从2009年起就是民主与科技中心在电子商务领域最大的捐助人之一。与此类似，斯坦福大学（Stanford University）互联网与社会中心（the Center for Internet and Society，CIS）也从Google Buzz一案中获得了50万美元的近似罚金，前年还从谷歌那里获得了40万美元的自愿捐赠（相当于当年CIS总收入的51%）。今年Facebook一案如果获批，CIS也将获得60万美元的近似罚金。

    在科技领域的版权问题上，电子前沿基金会、民主与科技中心和斯坦福大学的互联网与社会中心等组织都站在同一阵线上，与版权持有人展开混战。比如这三家非营利性机构都支持今年1月针对《禁止网络盗版法案》的断网抗议活动，而谷歌和Facebook也都反对这个法案。此外，在最近涉及谷歌的两起诉讼中，电子前沿基金会和民主与科技中心也分别向法庭递交了非当事人陈述意见，对谷歌表示支持。其中第一起诉讼是维亚康姆公司（Viacom）起诉谷歌的视频网站YouTube涉嫌侵犯版权；另一起是由语言课程公司Rosetta Stone状告谷歌拍卖其他公司的商标作为付费搜索的关键词，并且允许他人利用它的商标做广告。

    如果法院要求某个中立的个人向一家坚持与盗版侵权行为做斗争的慈善机构支付近似罚金的话，那么他的第一选择可能会是一家被谷歌和Facebook案中的诉讼各方彻底忽略了的机构——电子隐私信息中心（the Electronic Privacy Information Center，EPIC）。

    与谷歌和Facebook案中全部22个近似罚金的受益机构不同的是，电子隐私信息中心曾真刀真枪地针对谷歌和Facebook向美国联邦贸易委员会（the U.S. Federal Trade Commission）提起过诉讼，状告Google Buzz的侵权行为，以及Facebook涉嫌在未经用户许可的情况下，将用户身份信息用于广告用途等行为。正是在电子隐私信息中心的检举下，联盟贸易委员会针对两家公司采取了强制执行措施，两起诉讼最终以赔款和解告终。

    If the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the nation's preeminent digital rights nonprofit, had disclosed last year that it received a cool $1 million gift from Google -- about 17% of its total revenue -- some eyebrows might have been raised. The group typically describes itself as "member-supported" and, like most nonprofits, it treasures its above-the-commercial-fray, public-interest-group aura and reputation for independence.

    In fact, Google (GOOG) did transfer $1 million to the EFF last year, but the money did not have to be, and wasn't, reported as a corporate donation. And if, as currently planned, the EFF receives another $1 million this year from Facebook (FB), it won't have to report that as a donation either. That's because both transfers are formally court-ordered outlays being paid by those companies to settle class-action suits.

    "Well, of course those aren't donations!" the reader might interject. "They're the diametric opposite: involuntary, judicially mandated payments forced upon them by an adversary!" That's not the whole story either. These payments to the EFF are being made in suits the EFF played no role in bringing, and the defendants themselves -- Google and Facebook, in these instances -- helped select EFF to be their beneficiary.

    These weird, hybridized outlays -- part punitive fine, part voluntary donation -- are called cy presawards, meaning "as close as possible" (from the old Norman, cy pres comme possible). The theory behind them goes like this: In settling, the plaintiffs lawyers and the defendants agreed that awarding damages to actual class members would be impractical, because the sums owed each would be so tiny as to not warrant the expense of distribution. Accordingly, the parties agreed to pay the class nothing, but to pay a sum instead to charities that would serve as the next best thing, because the charities would theoretically promote the interests of class members in some indirect fashion pertinent to the lawsuit.

    These two awards to the EFF, for instance, stem from suits that alleged that Google and Facebook each violated their customers' privacy rights -- in Google's case, by exposing users' email contacts during its botched launch of its Google Buzz social network in February 2010 and, in Facebook's, by exploiting users' (including minors') identities and likenesses without express permission in its so-called "Sponsored Stories" ads in January 2011. In these two cases 21 other nonprofits also received, or stand to receive, money, though the EFF would be the biggest winner, taking in about 12% of the total $16.1 million doled out. (While the Google Buzz settlement was approved in May 2011, the Sponsored Stories settlement was just proposed in June, and is still being challenged by dissenters.)

    Giving cy pres money to the EFF makes sense, the parties in each case have argued, because digital privacy issues are one of the subjects the EFF monitors. It has not infrequently scolded (though never sued) Google and Facebook for privacy glitches and intrusions, and has advocated privacy legislation and policies that those companies oppose.

    At the same time, the EFF is often an ally of Google and Facebook when it comes to staving off liability to rights holders over user-generated infringing content, like pirated movies, photos, or music. Perhaps for these reasons, for instance, Google gave EFF about $25,000 in conventional, purely voluntary donations in 2010, and about $18,000 more in 2011.

    In fact, at least half of the cy pres recipients in these cases would very likely be getting at least some donations from Google or Facebook this year, whether or not any suit had ever been lodged against them. For instance, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), which got $500,000 from the Google Buzz cy pres award in 2011, received $340,000 in voluntary contributions from Google the year before. It's now slated to receive $1 million from the proposed Facebook award, though Facebook has been listed as one of CDT's leading e-commerce benefactors since at least 2009. Similarly, the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford (CIS), which received $500,000 from the Google Buzz award, had collected $400,000 in voluntary contributions from Google the year before (which amounted to 51% of CIS's total revenue that year). This year CIS will collect $600,000 from Facebook's Sponsored Stories settlement, if approved.

    The EFF, CDT, and Stanford's CIS all reliably line up on the tech sector side in scrimmages with copyright holders. All three supported, for instance, the January Internet blackout protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act -- legislation opposed by both Google and Facebook. EFF and CDT also each submitted amicus briefs supporting Google in its two most important recent litigations: Viacom's suit against Google's YouTube unit for copyright infringement, and a suit by Rosetta Stone, the language course company, challenging Google's practices of auctioning off other companies' trademarks for use as paid-search keywords and allowing them to be used in ad text as well.

    Now if some neutral individual had been tasked with awarding money to a charity that was single mindedly devoted to fighting precisely the sorts of wrongs alleged in the Google Buzz and Sponsored Stories class actions, his first choice would probably have been one that the settling parties in each case passed over entirely: the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

    Unlike any of the 22 cy pres recipients jointly proposed by the parties in the two cases, EPIC actually filed complaints against Google and Facebook with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over the Google Buzz launch and Facebook's use of members' identities and likenesses in ad campaigns without permission. Prompted by EPIC's complaints, the FTC brought enforcement actions against each company which culminated in consent decrees.