Zoom
- Videoconferencing app Zoom has skyrocketed in popularity in recent weeks as more people are working from home.
- But the growing popularity has also led to more scrutiny of the app's privacy and data-sharing policies.
- Additionally, intruders have begun crashing meetings and classes held over Zoom and infiltrating them with offensive content.
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Videoconferencing app Zoom is having a moment right now.
As the coronavirus pandemic has forced people across the country to work from home and stay indoors, video-chat services like Zoom are exploding in popularity.
It currently sits at the top of the charts in both Apple's and Google's app stores, and the service had already added more users in 2020 by late February than it did in all of 2019, according to a Bernstein note reported by MarketWatch.
But with Zoom's newfound popularity have come fresh concerns about privacy and how the company handles consumer data.
Zoom was recently hit with a class-action lawsuit over accusations that it shares data with third parties like Facebook without adequately notifying users. Zoom calls have also been the target of a new practice that's come to be known as "Zoom bombing," when people intrude on meetings and digital classes and bombard chat participants with offensive content. And most recently, a report from The Intercept raised questions about the quality of the encryption the company uses to secure calls.
Such concerns haven't gone unnoticed. The office of Letitia James, the New York attorney general, recently sent a letter to the company asking how it's tightening security as usage ramps up now that people are teleconferencing more than ever, The New York Times reported.
A Zoom spokesperson said the company takes user "privacy, security, and trust extremely seriously" and is willing provide the attorney general with the "requested information."
Here's a look at the privacy concerns that have cropped up around Zoom in recent weeks.
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