It seems that Zoom cannot stay out of the news for all the wrong reasons. This time Zoom is in hot water because Zoom issued a statement on Thursday acknowledging that the Chinese government requested that it suspend the accounts of several U.S.- and Hong Kong-based Chinese activists for holding events commemorating the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre:
Recent articles in the media about adverse actions we took toward Lee Cheuk-yan, Wang Dan, and Zhou Fengsuo have some calling into question our commitment to being a platform for an open exchange of ideas and conversations. To be clear, their accounts have been reinstated, and going forward, we will have a new process for handling similar situations.
We will do better as we strive to make Zoom the most secure and trusted way to bring people together.
Now if you read the rest of the blog post, Zoom acknowledges that they screwed up here. And that they are going to take corrective actions:
- Going forward Zoom will not allow requests from the Chinese government to impact anyone outside of mainland China.
- Zoom is developing technology over the next several days that will enable us to remove or block at the participant level based on geography. This will enable us to comply with requests from local authorities when they determine activity on our platform is illegal within their borders; however, we will also be able to protect these conversations for participants outside of those borders where the activity is allowed.
- We are improving our global policy to respond to these types of requests. We will outline this policy as part of our transparency report, to be published by June 30, 2020.
Now that isn’t good enough for some. Three U.S. lawmakers asked Zoom to clarify its data-collection practices and relationship with the Chinese government:
Representatives Greg Walden, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the ranking member of a consumer subcommittee, sent a letter to Zoom CEO Eric Yuan on Thursday asking him to clarify the company’s data practices, whether any was shared with Beijing and whether it encrypted users’ communications.
Republican Senator Josh Hawley also wrote to Yuan asking him to “pick a side” between the United States and China.
The three politicians have previously expressed concerns about TikTok’s owner, Chinese firm ByteDance, which is being scrutinized by U.S. regulators over the personal data the short video app handles.
Seeing as this is an election year, I would not be at all surprised if Congressional Hearings were called and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan was called onto the carpet. Because if Yuan thought his blog post would put out the fire related to this latest scandal, he’d be wrong.
Zoom To Pay Up To Make A Lawsuit Go Away
Posted in Commentary with tags Zoom on August 4, 2021 by itnerdZoom will have to cut a rather big cheque to the tune of $85 million to make a lawsuit related to lying about offering end-to-end encryption on its services, as well as providing user data to Facebook and Google without permission. Here’s the details:
Zoom has agreed to pay $85 million to settle claims that it lied about offering end-to-end encryption and gave user data to Facebook and Google without the consent of users. The settlement between Zoom and the filers of a class-action lawsuit also covers security problems that led to rampant “Zoombombings.”
The proposed settlement would generally give Zoom users $15 or $25 each and was filed Saturday at US District Court for the Northern District of California. It came nine months after Zoom agreed to security improvements and a “prohibition on privacy and security misrepresentations” in a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, but the FTC settlement didn’t include compensation for users.
I should note that Zoom has addressed a lot of these issues. And Zoom is making craploads of money. So does this really punish Zoom for their behavior? I don’t think so.
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