He made his fortune by persuading over a billion people to share their lives online, but when it comes to protecting his own privacy Mark Zuckerberg appears to spare no expense: the Facebook founder has reportedly spent $30m (£18.8m) buying four houses that surround his own home in California.

马克·扎克伯格鼓动10万多网民分享自己的网络生活并从中牟利，但说到保护自己的生活隐私，他却似乎不惜本金。这位脸谱网创始人最近被爆料花费了3千万美金，买下了加州他私宅附近的四套房子。

Zuckerberg acted after hearing that a developer planned to buy an adjoining property and market it as an opportunity to become neighbours with him. "The developer was going to build a huge house and market the property as being next door to Mark Zuckerberg." a source told the San Jose Mercury News.

扎克伯格此举事出有因，他听说一个房产开发商计划买下与自己住宅毗邻的地产，并意欲借这种邻居关系作为推销策略。有消息称，“这个开发商打算建造一幢大型公寓，拿这栋楼与扎克波格住宅的毗邻关系为推销噱头。”

The buying spree began in December, several months after Facebook's flotation elevated Zuckerberg into the ranks of America's super-rich, and culminated this week with the sale of a property immediately next to the home he shares with his wife, Priscilla Chan.

这套公寓楼区的疯狂抢购在12月开始了，距离脸谱网上市、扎克伯格跻身美国超级富豪之列仅数月。在这个星期购房狂潮达到了顶峰，有人买下了正在扎克伯格和妻子普莉希拉·陈的住宅旁边的房子。

The transactions suggest the multi-billionaire has spent many times the $7m cost of his own home, bought two years ago in a leafy neighbourhood of Palo Alto in the heart of California's Silicon Valley.

在这几桩交易里，这位超级百万富翁花费了比自己现有住房高出数倍的钱财。他现有的住房是在两年前买的，位于加州硅谷的中心地区、帕洛阿尔托市一个绿化很好的社区里。

In an effort to keep the purchases under the radar, the party named on the deeds is not Zuckerberg himself, but companies affiliated to Iconiq Capital, a wealth management firm that represents the Facebook chief executive and a number of other tycoons.

为了让购房事宜避人耳目，扎克伯格没有以自己的名义购买房产，而是以几个附属于Iconiq资产公司的子公司的名义购买的。Iconiq资产公司是一个财力雄厚的管理咨询公司，专门为这位脸谱网的首席执行官和其他几位巨头办理财务事宜。

Rather than being knocked down to extend the digital entrepreneur's own estate, the homes are apparently being leased back to the families that live there – with the interested parties required to sign non-disclosure agreements.

扎克伯格没有把买下的房产拆毁，以便扩大自己住房的面积，而是将这些房产出租给了原先居住的家庭。租赁双方签署了秘密协议。

Despite a fortune estimated at $19bn, the 29-year old is known for living modestly, having rented for years before taking the plunge into northern California's overheated property market. But the size of Zuckerberg's reported land grab brings him into line with Silicon Valley's flashier inhabitants.

虽然扎克伯格拥有约190亿美元的资产，这位29岁的青年却以生活简朴著称。他数年来一直租房过活，直到两年前才投身到加州北部过热的房地产市场之中。但现在扎克伯格拥有如此广阔的地产，他已经跻身硅谷的炫富土豪之列了。

"It's 10 times more than a typical house," local estate agent Alex Comsa told the Silicon Valley Business Journal. "It's unheard of."

“这里房价是一般房价的十倍之多”，当地房地产经纪人亚历克斯·科姆沙告诉《硅谷商业日报》的记者，“这样的事情真是闻所未闻。”