Enough “meaningless drivel”. That’s the message from a group of members of the UK government who have been examining how social media firms like LinkedIn gather and use social media data.
太多的“无意义废话”。这是一群英国政府成员发出的信息，他们一直在研究LinkedIn等社交媒体公司如何收集和使用社交媒体数据。
The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s report, released last week, has blamed firms for making people sign up to long incomprehensible legal contracts and calls for an international standard or kitemark to identify sites that have clear terms and conditions.
英国下议院科学技术委员会上周发布的报告指责那些公司让人们签署了难以理解的长期法律合同，并呼吁制定国际标准或风筝标记确定具有明确条款和条件的网站。
“The term and conditions statement that we all carelessly agree to is meaningless drivel to anyone,” says Andrew Miller, the chair of the committee. Instead, he says, firms should provide a plain-English version of their terms. The simplified version would be checked by a third party and awarded a kitemark if it is an accurate reflection of the original.
委员会主席安德鲁·米勒表示：“我们随意达成的条款和条件声明对任何人来说都是毫无意义的废话。”相反，他说公司应该提供一个简明的英语版本术语。简化版本将由第三方检查，如果它是原始版本的准确反映，则授予风筝标记。
It is not yet clear who would administer the scheme, but the UK government is looking at introducing it on a voluntary basis. “we need to think through how we make that work in practice,” says Miller.
目前尚不清楚谁将管理该计划，但英国政府正在考虑在自愿的基础上引入。米勒说：“我们需要思考如何在实践中发挥作用。”
Would we pay any more attention to a kitemark? “I think if you went and did the survey, people would like to think they would,” says Nigel Shadbolt at the University of Southampton, UK, who studies open data. “We do know people worry a lot about the inappropriate use of their information.” But what would happen in practice is another matter, he says.
我们会更加关注风筝标记吗？英国南安普顿大学研究开放数据的奈杰尔·沙德博尔特表示：“我认为，如果你去做调查，人们会认为他们会这样做。我们确实知道，人们非常担心信息的不当使用”。但他表示，在实践中会发生什么是另一回事。
Other organisations such as banks ask customers to sign long contracts they may not read or understand, but Miller believes social media requires special attention because it is so new. “We still don’t know how significant the long-term impact is going to be of unwise things that kids put on social media that come back and bite them in 20 years’ time,” he says.
银行等其他组织要求客户签署他们可能不阅读或不理解的长期合同，但米勒认为，社交媒体需要特别关注，因为它太新了。他说：“我们仍然不知道，孩子们在社交媒体上做出的不明智的事情其长期影响会有多大，20年后可能会反噬他们”。
Shadbolt, who gave evidence to the committee, says the problem is that we don’t know how companies will use our data because their business models and uses of data are still evolving. Large collections of personal information have become valuable only recently, he says.
向委员会提供证据的沙博尔特表示，问题是我们不知道公司将如何使用我们的数据，因为他们的商业模式和数据的使用仍在不断发展。他说，大规模的个人信息收集直到最近才变得有价值。
The shock and anger when a social media firm does something with data that people don’t expect, even if users have apparently permission, show that the current situation isn’t working. If properly administered, a kitemark on terms and conditions could help people know what exactly they are signing up to. Although they would still have to actually read them.
当一家社交媒体公司使用人们没有预料到的数据（即使用户显然获得了许可）时，人们的震惊和愤怒表明，目前的情况并不奏效。如果管理得当，条款和条件上的风筝标记可以帮助人们知道他们到底要签署什么。尽管他们仍然需要实际阅读。
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