How Zoom became a household name
Until recently, you mightnot have even heard of Zoom. The video conferencing appthat millions of people are using to stay in touchwith their friends and family. It's grown immensely, basically overnight, because of the pandemicand people are hosting all sorts of things on Zoom. Some people are evengetting married on Zoom. It's obviously a supersurreal time right now and people are trying to find the easiest and cheapest way to stay in touch with their friends and family. Zoom is super easy and cheap to use, but that ease of usemight be coming at a cost. Researchers and privacyadvocates are finding security and privacy issues with Zoom on what feels like a daily basis now. Zoom could become avictim of its own success as it faces a privacyand security backlash. Now, to understand whyZoom became so popular so quickly you have tounderstand how the app works. Every Zoom call comeswith a nine to 11 digit randomly generated code and participants have to enter that code inorder to access a meeting. That's super easy comparedto its competitors. Skype for example requiresa long case sensitive, alpha numeric password and FaceTime requires having an Apple ID. Zoom is definitely easier. By default though, you canjump into a Zoom meeting with just that little ID number or even a link and startbroadcasting your webcam or the content of your screento anybody on the call. Now, this makes Zoom sound ideal and super easy to use, but it's also lead to a phenomenon called Zoom bombing.
This is where prankstersjoin Zoom meetings from links that are posted publicly and stream porn or other offensive videos. It's shocking and terrible, and especially bad when itaffects school aged children. A lot of the privacy and security concerns started with Zoom bombing, but then, as researchersdug deeper into the app, they found more. For one, they discovered Zoom might have sharedinformation with Facebook. That lead to two lawsuits against Zoom and the attention of the office of New York's AttorneyGeneral which sent a letter to the company to betterunderstand its security practices. The FBI has also warnedabout Zoom's default settings and some companies are evennow starting to ban Zoom as a result. (mellow music) These are just a couple of Zoom's privacy and security issues. So, why are people still using this app? Well, it comes down to whatI was talking about earlier. Zoom just works. You can have an unlimitednumber of meetings and up to 100 people tochat for free at a time. This means, an entireclassroom can jump in and do virtual meetings,or groups of friends can get together without paying anything. Zoom also does a greatjob with gallery view on all those conference calls.
Its competitors sometimes make people look like disjointed, floating heads. At a time when everyone isstressing about the pandemic, people are going toflock to whatever's free and easiest to use. And right now, that's Zoom. Skype, the video callingservice we probably all remember from 10 years ago also has a similar way to hold video meetings,but for a long time, it was buried away andmost people didn't know that feature existed. Microsoft, since acquiring Skype, has instead focused onbuilding its team's software after years of letting Skype's reliability and its user interfacebecome kind of questionable. Houseparty has grown in popularity too for many of the same reasons as Zoom. Cisco Webex, StarLeaf, Whereby and Google Hangouts are justsome solid alternatives to Zoom and some rival services areeven lowering their free limits to get more people usingtheir apps right now. All these video appsare good and different in a variety of ways. It's worth exploring andseeing what's out there and what you like the most. Just know that Zoomisn't your only option. All right, so what is Zoom doing about all of these privacy and security concerns? The company is not rollingout any new features for 90 days to focus onreviewing the problems that researchers andjournalists have raised for one. It's also now claiming thatthe app was never designed to be used by general consumers or for the influx of peoplewho are using the app in strange and wonderful ways. And while that might be true, the app is easy to use for everybody regardless of whetherthey're in an office or not. Zoom now faces tough decisions around its default user settingsand user's privacy concerns and ultimately, how muchit's willing to give up its ease of use. Zoom might just have to tighten up aspects of its app that made itso appealing to consumers and businesses in the first place.
Meanwhile, the rest ofus will have to decide whether we're happy togive up some privacy for software that's free. That's a familiar choicethat millions of people face with services like Facebook, or Google that are also popular and best in class. The harsh reality is thatyou either pay for an app with cash or with your personal data and that decision usuallycomes down to trust. Zoom needs to prove toits millions of new users that it can be trusted during a time when they need it the most. Hey, thanks for watching. As always, stay tuned to The Verge. We are pumpin' out videos tokeep you guys entertained. Please stay safe and healthy. And call your mom, call your friends, talk over video chat. It's gonna keep us all connected.
This is where prankstersjoin Zoom meetings from links that are posted publicly and stream porn or other offensive videos. It's shocking and terrible, and especially bad when itaffects school aged children. A lot of the privacy and security concerns started with Zoom bombing, but then, as researchersdug deeper into the app, they found more. For one, they discovered Zoom might have sharedinformation with Facebook. That lead to two lawsuits against Zoom and the attention of the office of New York's AttorneyGeneral which sent a letter to the company to betterunderstand its security practices. The FBI has also warnedabout Zoom's default settings and some companies are evennow starting to ban Zoom as a result. (mellow music) These are just a couple of Zoom's privacy and security issues. So, why are people still using this app? Well, it comes down to whatI was talking about earlier. Zoom just works. You can have an unlimitednumber of meetings and up to 100 people tochat for free at a time. This means, an entireclassroom can jump in and do virtual meetings,or groups of friends can get together without paying anything. Zoom also does a greatjob with gallery view on all those conference calls.
Its competitors sometimes make people look like disjointed, floating heads. At a time when everyone isstressing about the pandemic, people are going toflock to whatever's free and easiest to use. And right now, that's Zoom. Skype, the video callingservice we probably all remember from 10 years ago also has a similar way to hold video meetings,but for a long time, it was buried away andmost people didn't know that feature existed. Microsoft, since acquiring Skype, has instead focused onbuilding its team's software after years of letting Skype's reliability and its user interfacebecome kind of questionable. Houseparty has grown in popularity too for many of the same reasons as Zoom. Cisco Webex, StarLeaf, Whereby and Google Hangouts are justsome solid alternatives to Zoom and some rival services areeven lowering their free limits to get more people usingtheir apps right now. All these video appsare good and different in a variety of ways. It's worth exploring andseeing what's out there and what you like the most. Just know that Zoomisn't your only option. All right, so what is Zoom doing about all of these privacy and security concerns? The company is not rollingout any new features for 90 days to focus onreviewing the problems that researchers andjournalists have raised for one. It's also now claiming thatthe app was never designed to be used by general consumers or for the influx of peoplewho are using the app in strange and wonderful ways. And while that might be true, the app is easy to use for everybody regardless of whetherthey're in an office or not. Zoom now faces tough decisions around its default user settingsand user's privacy concerns and ultimately, how muchit's willing to give up its ease of use. Zoom might just have to tighten up aspects of its app that made itso appealing to consumers and businesses in the first place.
Meanwhile, the rest ofus will have to decide whether we're happy togive up some privacy for software that's free. That's a familiar choicethat millions of people face with services like Facebook, or Google that are also popular and best in class. The harsh reality is thatyou either pay for an app with cash or with your personal data and that decision usuallycomes down to trust. Zoom needs to prove toits millions of new users that it can be trusted during a time when they need it the most. Hey, thanks for watching. As always, stay tuned to The Verge. We are pumpin' out videos tokeep you guys entertained. Please stay safe and healthy. And call your mom, call your friends, talk over video chat. It's gonna keep us all connected.
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