Zoom Video Communications, Inc. recently updated its Terms of Service to encompass what some critics are calling a significant invasion of user privacy.
Zoom’s updated policy states that all rights to Service Generated Data are retained solely by Zoom. This extends to Zoom’s rights to modify, distribute, process, share, maintain, and store such data “for any purpose, to the extent and in the manner permitted under applicable law.”, including AI and Machine Learning.
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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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Holly shit and people and companies even pay for this pos?
Does anyone know if that’s ok with the DGPR in Europe?
*GDPR
And, no, it’s not okay.
Remember: the corporate meetings and university lectures are the tip of the iceberg of the kind of data Zoom has on people.
Zoom is used by teenage couples to call each other and hang out, which might turn into discussing sexual themes as teenagers dating often do.
Zoom is used by general-care doctors when their patients describe the rash on their anus.
Zoom is used by psychiatrists and therapists talking to their patients during some of the most vulnerable and precarious times of their lives.
Zoom is used by lawyers talking to their clients in all kind of cases, criminal, civil, divorce/family, inheritance, etc.
Zoom was used by actual fucking courts to hold actual fucking criminal trials. Like bruh the fucking US judiciary department couldn’t have self-hosted one of the many open source and E2EE solutions?
The fact that they can do this with no oversight or regulatory bodies intervening is utterly ridiculous. Zoom has probably some of the most sensitive data of people’s lives. It is not a social media platform where people know that they shouldn’t put too sensitive information on, it was literally intended and marketed for people to use for sensitive communications. They shouldn’t even be keeping any amount of data after the call ends, IMO, but using it to train an AI (to presumably sell later) is utterly morally bankrupt, and so are the regulatory agencies and lawmakers who could have intervened. Fuck you Zoom, fuck you FCC/FTC/whoever handles data privacy in the US. You want to ban TikTok because of its “national security implications” but don’t bat an eye when it’s a US company doing something far worse huh? Not implying I like TikTok, but TikTok doesn’t have access to live court trials or doctor-patient discussions.
Yes, we shouldn’t have used Zoom in the first place. But that ship has sailed and most people were forced to use it against their will if their company/university/doctor/lawyer/judge decides to use it, and/or they did not realize the terrible data security/privacy implications of using it. It’s entirely unhelpful to victim blame and go “well you shouldn’t have used Zoom then! Sucks for you” as I see so many people in the FLOSS/privacy community doing. Additionally, that also does not address the actual societal/legislative issues of them being allowed to keep that information and use it for profit.
It should be said that many business customers do use a self-hosted version of Zoom. I couldn’t say for sure if every court did, but major government bodies definitely used something more than the free package, which come with different T&Cs.
This is the big issue in online user data. In no other instance in life can someone take something without offering anything in return. Yes, websites are usually free, but Microsoft collect your data from the software you already pay them for. Just like you can’t build and sell a car without paying for the nuts and bolts, there needs to be clear legal infrastructure to prevent data businesses from getting away with taking everyone’s data for free and using it to develop products for pure profit.
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It’s not that easy, because you are dependent on the person / organization setting up the conference. Privately I would never use it, but I often follow webinars and information sessions hosted by an multinational organization, and these are always held via Zoom. So it would be a “take it or leave it” approach. I would not even know to whom to refer to ask for an alternative option.
I havent used zoom in like two years. Every meeting I’ve attended has been either MS Teams or Google Meet.
Good for you?
Went to Infocomm this year, the audio / video trade show, to get the lay of the land on next generation conference systems.
The two main elements at almost every booth were zoom and teams. Those two platforms have completely replaced IP based conferencing, and when the tide turns like this, no matter how bad the idea, we’re stuck with it for five to ten years.
On both the hardware and software level, there just isn’t an alternative for corporate scale conferencing.
I may be able to make the argument against zoom for privacy reasons, but I suspect teams isn’t going to be any better.
Have you tried Cisco Webex?
It’s not so much a function of try, and yes, I’ve used it. It’s the fact that during lock down the whole company used Zoom and Teams, and changing systems now would take an act of God far above my paygrade.
Historically, Tandberg, later acquired by Cisco, was hands down the best video conference codec. I have no doubt their new line is just as good.
I can try forwarding this info to network security and see what they think.
I should just tell our CEO then that I refuse to use Zoom and fail to show to any and all meetings as well as tasks which require Zoom? That’s it then. Privacy is saved.
Well, if you’re in the EU you could tell your DPO and they should take action to prevent your company from using Zoom from now on.
I’m in Asia. Idk how our company is going to handle this (or if they care) but we do have a meeting this week so I may mention it again (if I get a chance to).
Tell your IT guys that zoom permanently records all meetings and they will use it for financial gain in the future, potentially including corporate blackmail. Ask the people in charge if price is worth continued business with using the software.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I probably won’t add the blackmail stuff. I’m still thinking how to go about it, tbh. Last time I brought it up was when they were thinking of switching due to cost and I mentioned the privacy issues. I think Zoom recording meetings would at least give them pause (I hope), but I still need to make it as believable as possible and give an alternative that’s already widely used (for customers and clients).
Sure.
Interestingly, it is illegal for any party to record a phone call in my jurisdiction without notifying all the parties. Zoom would be in violation of this law.
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This kind of optimistic attitude ignores the reality that such actions are only effective when organized in mass. If I stop using zoom, it’s pointless. It’s only effective in the context of organizing with others.
The rich might want us to think that we are empowered to inflict change by merely making personal choices (which in reality are completely futile). In reality, our power shows when we’re united.
I never started using zoom because of the original privacy concerns. It would have been great if people would have listened, but the truth is that most humans are just not that smart.
I don’t even bother anymore. I just try to live my life in a way that corporations profit as little off of me as possible.
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Not to mention saying “just stop using Zoom” is pretty dumb if your company insists on using it. I’ve lobbied for other apps to be used with my company but they didn’t budge mainly because we’ll have to convince ALL our customers and clients to use whatever service we use as well.
I’ve always liked Google Meet better anyway. Hopefully Google don’t decide to scrap it too, because while it seems like it is going to stick around, they do really like scrapping projects…
edit: Nevermind, I forgot people aren’t allowed to have preferences. I understand Google is evil, and their web extensions is literally going to kill the Internet, but you can’t tell me that millions of people aren’t using Gmail.
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It’s foss?
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But Google takes their security super seriously, and the only person they’re sharing our data with is the government.
That’s not a good thing, but if you need a chat app that pretty much everyone already has installed, for non-sensitive conversations, you could do much worse than Google Meet.
Considering courts have been using Zoom since COVID…I am dying to see what happens. Will Zoom clarify that it doesn’t collect/utilize meeting recordings to train AI? Is it going to exactly that and force anyone conducting sensitive business to find a new platform?
This feels like a remarkably bad move, both for privacy and for Xoom’s own business concerns, unless I’m missing something.
Won’t be an issue for courts. In fact, the original text prediction software came from the Enron Corpus - a trove of emails gathered by the FERC during their lawsuit against Enron.
Now, companies will absolutely not be friendly about this. The number one reason most companies are hesitant to AI is because they don’t want to risk giving sensitive data to an outside company.
Ha ha not yet!
xXxX00MxXx69
Wait till Elon Musk buys it…
Wat
@skilledtothegills would be forbidden for them to train on actual content from calls under EU law, as it would be in breach of the ePrivacy Directive (read alongside something called the European Electronic Communications Code, which gives similar obligations to ‘over-the-top’ providers as to classic telecoms). Not that US tech firms have a great history of adhering to EU law.
Man the modern internet is a privacy nightmare.
That’s a very zoomy thing to do given what we’ve seen the company do so far. If they can figure out a new way profit from stabbing you in the back, they absolutely will go for it.
This is terrible for privacy, but not surprising at all. For enterprise, the target market for Zoom, I imagine this doesn’t matter much.
I don’t know anyone that uses Zoom for personal use. And if you do, why?
I used zoom for some hobby online meetups. The majority used zoom. I’m assuming that it’s organizer’s choice, which they’re familiar at work. I’d love to spread a word for FOSS alternatives, but sadly I’m not the person organizes events.
The thing is for most people zoom is equivalent of video conference. Zoom has soared its publicity in WFH era, and Zoom decides to (like every corporation does) utilize it, milking every possible profit from it.
I’d wager enterprise customers wouldn’t want this either, and I won’t be surprised if they demand to explicitly remove that clause on their contracts. Imagine all the highly confidential info and trade secrets being exchanged on company zoom meetings that can be harvested for AI use.
It matters more. Nobody wants trade secrets being used to train some ai.
Last year, my whole company switched to jitsi.
Solves 90% of our use cases and open-sourced enough to expand on it.
do you host it in house? what compression does it use?
During the early part of 2020 I moved my classes onto Zoom. Because of this change, I’ll be moving my video conferencing elsewhere. What’s with companies destroying themselves while attempting to maximize profits. Just another reddifugee on kbin.social. SMH.
FOSS Zoom Alternatives -
https://itsfoss.com/open-source-video-conferencing-tools/
https://www.makeuseof.com/open-source-video-conferencing-software/
https://fosspost.org/zoom-alternatives/
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thanks for sharing, looks like some good alternatives here.
The term “enshittification” comes to mind.
The term “enshittification” is as common on Lemmy as “play stupid games…” is on Reddit.
It’s a much less stupid word/phrase, though, so that’s fine with me.
Cory Doctorow is a smart man and I’m glad he’s around to educate us.
Host yourselves
https://jitsi.org/
Do you know if they support disabling things like auto-equalization of audio or changing the bitrate? I use zoom for music lessons because they’re the only one I’ve ever found that will let me do that, which sucks because zoom really isn’t that great of an app
As a user, I liked webex more than any other video conferencing software. But IDK how much adjustment it allows.
I looked at them too but couldn’t find an obvious way to get it from Cisco without buying a license big enough to share with everyone I know lol
My understanding is that my employer dropped webex because it was more expensive than others. I think we only use Teams now which works but not as well as webex.
Yeah and that’s my problem I only need one 2 person conference a week and webex is like using a nuclear bomb to go fishing price wise
Just a thought: Explain your needs to Jitsi devs. Or other software linked here. Maybe they could cater to a niche market to get more market share. Or offer a free music lesson for their trouble.
Must be an email address on their site somewhere.
Update: they have a very active github for the desktop app, and they had a fix almost immediately. There are webAPI calls that can be appended to the end of the meeting link before starting. If your link for example is “https://meet.jit.si/myLesson” you can append the following string:
#config.disableAP=true&config.disableAEC=true&config.disableNS=true&config.disableAGC=true&config.disableHPF=true&config.stereo=truemaking it https://meet.jit.si/myLesson#config.disableAP=true&config.disableAEC=true&config.disableNS=true&config.disableAGC=true&config.disableHPF=true&config.stereo=true`
and this will disable all the audio processing that could harm the meeting. You will probably want headphones though as it will cause a lot of echoes if it can hear anything from the meeting.
Figured I’d leave this here in case anyone else was looking for a similar solution.
EDIT: Lemmy keeps adding “amp;” after each & symbol. Those are incorrect but so far I’m failing to get the thing to stop doing it every time I hit post. Those should be removed for a working link. Try this link to see how it should look.
That is a good idea I’ll hunt around for where to request it later today!
Yay Jitsi!!
I’m sure companies will be interested in hearing this, especially those with regulatory requirements.
As someone who works at a company with relevant regulatory obligations, I plan on forwarding this article to our infosec team tomorrow.
Yeah WTF? Companies that have medical data, other PII… they’re going to have to cancel their Zoom contracts right? I guess that’s up to their lawyers to interpret/decide.
The real trouble here is got vague the term “user generated content” is.
Does that include recordings of meetings? Does that include files or messages over chat during calls? Does it include names of those attending calls?
With it being so vague, you have to assume the worst possible case, which sucks for anyone who uses Zoom.
Unrelated, you’re my favourite game ever and I love you and miss you and I’d pay so much for a pre-re server without a cash shop at maybe 2-5k total players.
I love you too and each winter I make a habit of hopping on a p-server and enveloping myself in nostalgia. I’m still waiting for an RO Lemmy community.
Let me know if you ever start playing again and I’ll be your buddy.
Ugh I would love that soooo much. Did you play iRO back in the early ‘00s?
I did! I played it for 3-4 years around the mid-to-early 2000s.
So many great memories of LoE and going on MVP hunts with my monk. Not to mention the super fun holiday events. I still haven’t had a game hit the same spot as Ragnarok during Christmas 2004.
SAAAAME
I started on Chaos, but my home was Sakray.
I WAS ON CHAOS TOOOOO! Were you in any particular alliance (or guild or clan or whatever they called it)? I was only in a small one called “Phenix Rising”. But it didn’t last super long.
I was a guileless roamer Wizard on Chaos, because it felt soooo big! I didn’t get deep in guilds and community until moving over to little Sakray.
Sakray was my high school life. I made friends I still love today. It honestly probably saved my life. I wouldn’t be where I am, wouldn’t be married to the person I’m with, and might not even be alive if not for Ragnarok and the connections I made there.
I’m getting an RO tattoo shortly. I haven’t decided exactly what, yet. I don’t want a pantless fox girl on my flesh or I’d get Moonlight, easily. Possibly Eddga? Maybe Bapho, I love the way it is stylized. Maybe a Sting, because I spent more time SD’ing Stings than probably any other grinding spot in the game… aside from Elder Willows, I suppose.
Maybe just a tiny image of a card on the floor.
They can’t be that stupid. Many companies that use zoom do it to discuss with clients, in conversations that are expected to be private and confidential. Training an ai might mean leaking some of this content, unless it’s an AI used exclusive internally at zoom. They better not use recording of meetings, unless they are ready to pay lawyers for years
Who the fuck is dumb enough to use zoom for anything classified and confidential.
Department of Defense
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Soldiers were sharing nuclear secrets in flash card apps.
Just because someone has a secret clearance, doesn’t mean they’ve ever been told that the entire Internet is siphoning their data in any way possible.
yeah I think it means … ALL OF IT.
also double sucks because a lot of people have no choice but to use zoom. jobs require it.
If you have to use it for work, it is not your issue, but your employer’s.
Still, I will be surprised if zoom will apply this rule to corporate customers.
Yeah, but if you’re interviewing for a job, it IS your problem, no?
Good point: n this case it is 50/50, I would say. Interview is unlikely, your private discussion. Not sure to what degree interview discussion “belongs” to the interviewing company.
Moreover, if you think that company uses wrong tools, you can simply reject interview.
But doesn’t this term of use mean that you don’t own anything, zoom owns everything?
I think zoom do not want to own everything, it simply wants to be able to use this data to improve their services and stay relevant. Ms teams had a lot of ml bases features already.
But how is this related to the contents of my comment?
They wont for long if their legal departments see that. We already arent allowed to record meetings with zoom where i work, and are going to teams.
Its the people who lose in this one