Zoom Just Gave Free Users Frightening News…And Other Small Business Tech News

NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 18: Adena Friedman, chief executive officer of Nasdaq Inc., welcomes Eric Yuan, founder and chief executive officer of Zoom Video Communications Inc before the Nasdaq opening bell ceremony on April 18, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Kena Betancur/Getty Images)GETTY IMAGES

Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?

1 — Zoom just gave free users frightening news.      

Zoom announced this past week that those who use the video platform for free will no longer have encrypted calls and that this new change will happen sooner than later. The reasoning behind this change —according to the company — is that they want to be able to comply and work with local law enforcement agencies as well as the FBI in the event that Zoom would be used for malicious reasons. Those who use Zoom for free merely need to provide an email address, therefore not providing adequate information in order to help verify the identity of somebody. This new roll out will only provide that end-to-end encryption to individuals with full verifiable accounts. (Source: ZDNet)

Why this is important for your business:

Hmm…or maybe Zoom could ask for the same info from their free users and give them the same encryption as their paid users? You may disagree, but this seems more like a marketing tactic than a compliance concern and for that reason I’m beginning to become just a little more wary of Zoom. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a great platform. But considering their handling of past security concerns – and more importantly how they’re addressing these concerns – you may want to consider other communication platforms for your small business as well.

This is a response I received from Zoom:

Zoom has used – and continues to use – encryption technology on its platform for all users. AES 256-bit GCM encryption, which is one of the most secure encryption standards used today, is currently enabled system-wide and is available to all users – both free and paid.

Read more: forbes