单选题
Transatlantic friction between companies and
regulators has grown as Europe's data guardians have become more assertive.
Francesca Bignami, a professor at George Washington University's law school,
says that the explosion of digital technologies has made it impossible for
watchdogs to keep a close eye on every web company operating in their backyard.
So instead they are relying more on scapegoating prominent wrongdoers in the
hope that this will deter others. But regulators such as Peter
Schaar, who heads Germany's federal data-protection agency, say the gulf is
exaggerated. Some European countries, he points out, now have rules that make
companies who suffer big losses of customer data to report these to the
authorities. The inspiration for these measures comes from America.
Yet even Mr. Schaar admits that the internet's global scale means that
there will need to be changes on both sides of the Atlantic. He hints that
Europe might adopt a more flexible regulatory stance if America were to create
what amounts to an independent data-protection body along European lines. In
Europe, where the flagship Data Protection Directive came into effect in 1995,
the European Commission is conducting a review of its privacy policies. In
America Congress has begun debating a new privacy bill and the Federal Trade
Commission is considering an overhaul of its rules. Even if
America and Europe do narrow their differences, internet firms will still have
to struggle with other data watchdogs. In Asia countries that belong to APEC are
trying to develop a set of regional guidelines for privacy rules under an
initiative known as the Data Privacy Pathfinder. Some countries such as
Australia and New Zealand have longstanding privacy laws, but many emerging
nations have yet to roll out fully fledged versions of their own. Mr. Polonetsky
sees Asia as "a new privacy battleground", with America and Europe both keen to
tempt countries towards their own regulatory model. Canada
already has something of a hybrid privacy regime, which may explain why its
data-protection commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, has been so influential on the
international stage. She marshaled the signatories of the Google Buzz letter and
took Facebook to task last year for breaching Canada's data privacy laws, which
led the company to change its policies. Ms Stoddart argues that
American companies often trip up on data-privacy issues because of "their
brimming optimism that the whole world wants what they have rolled out in
America." Yet the same optimism has helped to create global companies that have
brought huge benefits to consumers, while also presenting privacy regulators
with tough choices. Shoehorning such firms into old privacy frameworks will not
benefit either them or their users.
单选题
According to paragraph 1, web watchdogs ______.
A. are faced with tough choices to regulate web companies.
B. keep a close eye on every internet company.
C. scapegoat famous companies to keep others in alarm.
D. report losses of customer data to the authorities.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 根据题干定位到第一段。第2、3句谈到由于数字技术的迅猛发展，监管机构已经无法盯紧在其后院运作的每家网络公司，而只能选择犯了错的著名公司(scapegoating prominent wrongdoers)当替罪羊杀一儆百(deter others)，C项与之基本吻合。
A项中的tough choices文中没有表现出来，故排除。B项与第一段第2句的impossible for watchdogs to keep a close eye冲突。D项偷梁换柱，第二段第2句谈到，丢失大量客户数据的企业向当局反映，D项将companies偷换成了watchdogs。
单选题
The "gulf" (Line2, Para. 2) refers to ______.
A. the friction between web companies and regulators.
B. the differences between European and American privacy practice.
C. the argument between data watchdogs and governments.
D. the conflict between customers and companies which disclose
data.