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Zoom Video Communications

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 79.46.51.143 (talk) at 01:51, 30 March 2020 (→‎Use during the COVID-19 pandemic). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Zoom Video Communications, Inc.
Company typePublic
Nasdaq: ZM (Class A)
Founded2011
Headquarters
San Jose, California
Key people
Eric Yuan, founder and CEO
ServicesZoom Meetings
Zoom Premium Audio
Zoom Business IM
Zoom Video Webinar
Zoom Rooms
Zoom H.323/SIP Connector
Zoom Developer Platform
Revenue4,392,960,000 United States dollar (2022) Edit this on Wikidata
245,429,000 United States dollar (2022) Edit this on Wikidata
103,711,000 United States dollar (2022) Edit this on Wikidata
Number of employees
1,958 (2019)
Websitezoom.us
Zoom advertisement at Denver International Airport

Zoom Video Communications is an American remote conferencing services company headquartered in San Jose, California. It provides a remote conferencing service that combines video conferencing, online meetings, chat, and mobile collaboration.[1]

History

Zoom was founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan, a lead engineer from Cisco Systems and its collaboration business unit WebEx.[1] The service started in January 2013, and by May 2013 it claimed one million participants.[2] During the first year of its release, Zoom established partnerships with B2B collaboration software providers, such as Redbooth (then Teambox),[3] and also created a program named "Works with Zoom", which established partnerships with multiple hardware and software vendors such as Logitech, Vaddio,[4] and InFocus.[5][6][7]

By June 2014, Zoom had 10 million users.[8] In February 2015, the number of participants utilizing Zoom Video Communication's chief product, Zoom Meetings, reached 40 million individuals, with 65,000 organizations subscribed. The company had hosted a total of 1 billion meeting minutes since it was established.[9]

On February 4, 2015, Zoom Video Communications received US$30 million in Series C funding. Participants in this funding round include Emergence Capital, Horizons Ventures (Li Ka-shing), Qualcomm Ventures, Jerry Yang, and Patrick Soon-Shiong.[10] In November 2015, former president of RingCentral David Berman was named president of Zoom Video Communications, and the founder and CEO of Veeva Systems, Peter Gassner, joined Zoom's board of directors.[11]

In January 2017, Zoom had officially entered the unicorn club ($1 billion valuation) and attracted $100 million in Series D funding from Sequoia Capital at a billion dollar valuation.

In September 2017, Zoom hosted Zoomtopia 2017, Zoom's first annual user conference. Zoom announced a series of new products and partnerships, including Zoom's Partnership with Meta to integrate Zoom with Augmented Reality, integration with Slack and Workplace by Facebook, and first steps towards an artificial intelligence speech-to-text converter.[12]

In March 2019, Zoom filed to go public on the NASDAQ;[13] on April 18, 2019, the company went public, with shares up more than 72%, with an Initial public offering of $36 a share.[14] The company was valued at just under $16 billion by the end of its IPO.[14]

Use during the COVID-19 pandemic

Main article: Coronavirus impact on teleconferencing

In early 2020, usage of Zoom increased sharply as schools and companies adopted the platform for remote work in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, rising 67% from the start of the year to mid-March.[15] Since the novel coronavirus pandemic has intensified, news outlets have reported that thousands of educational institutions switched to online classes using Zoom.[16][17] The company offered its services to K–12 schools free of charge in many countries.[18] These measures have contributed to a sharp rise in Zoom usage; for example, in one day, the Zoom app was downloaded 343,000 times with about 18% of those downloads originating in the United States.[18]

Zoom also became a popular social platform over the course of the pandemic.[19][20] Young people use the platform outside of the classroom setting.[19] Gen Z and Millennials have connected with each other through events such as "Zoom Blind Dates", "Zoom Recess", and sharing Zoom related memes online, such as in the Facebook group "Zoom Memes for Self Quaranteens".[19] Zoom as a company has developed into an Internet Meme and students at a number of colleges and universities have spread memes about its use as "Zoom University".[21][22]

With the rise of videoconferencing, incidents of "Zoombombing", the practice of participants unexpectedly appearing in conferences and sending pornography or other offensive material to other attendees, have occurred,[23][24][25] causing some organizations to abandon the use of Zoom.[26] Zoom has published a guide to reduce the chances of such incidents.[27]

Products

Zoom offers free video conferencing for up to 100 participants, with a 40-minute time limit. Paid subscriptions are available to allow more participants, increase the time limit, and obtain more advanced features. Zoom's closed source software is claimed to be compliant with FedRAMP[28], HIPAA[29], PIPEDA and PHIPA[30], and the GDPR.[31] Zoom has received various industry recognitions for its products.[32]

Initially, Zoom could host conferences with up to 15 video participants,[33] increased to 25 in January 2013, to 100 with version 2.5 in October 2015,[34][35] and later to 1,000 for business customers.[36] Between 2015 and mid-2016, Zoom Video Communications announced native support for Skype for Business and integration with Slack.[37][38]

In September 2015, Zoom announced integration of Zoom video conferencing with Salesforce's customer relationship management platform, allowing salespeople to initiate such conferences with their sales leads without leaving the application.[39] In April 2017, Zoom launched Telehealth, a scalable telehealth product allowing doctors to remotely visit their patients through video for consultation.[40][41] In May 2017, Zoom announced a partnership with Polycom that integrated Zoom's video meetings into Polycom's conferencing systems, enabling features such as multiple screen and device meetings, HD and wireless screen sharing, and calendar integration with Outlook, Google Calendar, and iCal.[42]

Criticism

Privacy

Zoom has been criticized for its data collection practices,[43] which include its collection and storage of "the content contained in cloud recordings, and instant messages, files, whiteboards" as well as its enabling employers to monitor workers remotely;[44][45] the Electronic Frontier Foundation warned that administrators can join any call at any time "without in-the-moment consent or warning for the attendees of the call."[46] The Ministry of Defence of the U.K. banned its use.[47][48] During signup for a Zoom free account, Zoom requires users to permit it to identify users with their personal information on Google and also offers to permanently delete their Google contacts.

Widespread use of Zoom for online education during the novel coronavirus pandemic increased concerns regarding students' data privacy and, in particular, their personally identifiable information.[17] According to the FBI, students’ IP addresses, browsing history, academic progress, and biometric data may also be at risk.[17] Privacy experts are also concerned that the use of Zoom by schools and universities may raise issues regarding unauthorized surveillance of students and possible violations of students’ rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).[49] The company claims that the video services are FERPA-compliant, and also claims that it collects and stores user data only to "provide technical and operational support".[49]

The company's iOS app was found to be sending device analytics data to Facebook on startup, regardless of whether a Facebook account was being used with the service.[50] On March 27, Zoom stated that it had been "recently made aware that the Facebook SDK was collecting unnecessary device data", and that it had patched the app to remove the SDK (which was primarily used for social login support) in order to address these concerns. The company stated that the SDK was only collecting information on the user's device specifications (such as model names and operating system versions), and was not collecting personal information.[51]

Security

Zoom claims to use Advanced Encryption Standard 256-bit (AES 256) encryption.[52][53]

In November 2018, a security vulnerability (CVE-2018-15715) was discovered[54] that allowed a remote unauthenticated attacker to spoof UDP messages from a meeting attendee or Zoom server in order to invoke functionality in the target client. This would allow the attacker to remove attendees from meetings, spoof messages from users, or hijack shared screens.

In July 2019, security researcher Jonathan Leitschuh disclosed[55] a zero-day vulnerability allowing any website to forcibly join a macOS user to a Zoom call, with their video camera activated, without the user's permission. In addition, attempts to uninstall the Zoom client on macOS would prompt the software to re-install automatically in the background, using a hidden web server that was set up on the machine during the first installation and remained active even after attempting to remove the client. After receiving public criticism, Zoom updated their software to remove the vulnerability and the hidden webserver, allowing complete uninstallation.[56]

References

  1. ^ a b Maldow, David S. (January 27, 2013). "Zoom's Full Featured UME Videoconferencing Platform Exceeds Expectations". Telepresence Options.
  2. ^ Pleasant, Robbie (May 23, 2013). "Zoom Video Communications Reaches 1 Million Participants". TMCnet.
  3. ^ "Teambox Adds High-Definition Video Conferencing, Market Looks for Deeper Collaboration". TechCrunch. June 18, 2013.
  4. ^ "Vaddio and Zoom Video Communications Partner to Bring Collaboration to The Enterprise". HD Pro Guide. July 25, 2013. Retrieved February 11, 2015.
  5. ^ "Zoom Launches Program with Top Communications Tech Companies". TMCnet. July 25, 2013.
  6. ^ Chao, Jude (July 29, 2013). "Zoom Beefs Up Video Conferencing Strategy with New Partners". Enterprise Networking Planet. Retrieved February 11, 2015.
  7. ^ "Zoom Video Communications Partners with Industry-Leading Technology Providers" (Press release). Business Wire. July 23, 2013. Retrieved February 11, 2015.
  8. ^ "How We Zoomed to 10 Million Participants". Dell.
  9. ^ "Zoom Raises $30M in Series C Funding Led by Emergence Capital" (Press release). Market Wired.
  10. ^ Gage, Deborah (February 4, 2015). "Fast-Growing Zoom Raises $30 Million for Online Video Conferencing". Wall Street Journal.
  11. ^ "Zoom Names New President David Berman and Board Member Peter Gassner" (Press release). MarketWired. November 3, 2015. Retrieved November 19, 2015.
  12. ^ Miller, Ron. "Zoom brings a dash of augmented reality and artificial intelligence to meetings in latest release". TechCrunch. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
  13. ^ Clark, Kate (March 22, 2019). "Zoom, a profitable unicorn, files to go public". TechCrunch. Retrieved April 19, 2019.
  14. ^ a b Business, Ahiza Garcia, Sara O'Brien and Jordan Valinsky (April 18, 2019). "Zoom nearly reaches $16 billion in value after first day of trading". CNN. Retrieved April 19, 2019. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ Vena, Danny (March 14, 2020). "Zoom Is Helping Schools Closing Due to Coronavirus -- for Free". The Motley Fool. Retrieved March 14, 2020.
  16. ^ Mervosh, Sarah; Swales, Vanessa (March 10, 2020). "Colleges and Universities Cancel Classes and Move Online Amid Coronavirus Fears". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 26, 2020.
  17. ^ a b c Strauss, Valerie (March 20, 2020). "As schooling rapidly moves online across the country, concerns rise about student data privacy". The Washington post.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  18. ^ a b Konrad, Alex. "Exclusive: Zoom CEO Eric Yuan Is Giving K-12 Schools His Videoconferencing Tools For Free". Forbes. Retrieved March 14, 2020.
  19. ^ a b c Lorenz, Taylor; Griffith, Erin; Isaac, Mike (March 17, 2020). "We Live in Zoom Now". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 26, 2020.
  20. ^ Parsons, Jeff (March 23, 2020). "Ok Zoomer: Why Zoom is the world's new favourite social network". Metro. Retrieved March 26, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  21. ^ Wagner, James (March 14, 2020). "How Coronavirus Is Changing Our Daily Lives: Latest Updates". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 14, 2020.
  22. ^ Lorenz, Taylor; Griffith, Erin; Isaac, Mike (March 17, 2020). "We Live in Zoom Now". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 23, 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  23. ^ "'Zoombombing' disrupts online classes at University of Southern California". Washington Post.
  24. ^ "USC, school districts getting 'Zoom-bombed' with racist taunts, porn as they transition to online meetings". Los Angeles Times. March 25, 2020.
  25. ^ "Beware of 'ZoomBombing:' screensharing filth to video calls". TechCrunch. March 18, 2020.
  26. ^ Taylor Lorenz. "'Zoombombing': When Video Conferences Go Wrong". The New York Times. Retrieved March 27, 2020. On Tuesday, Chipotle was forced to end a public Zoom chat that the brand had co-hosted with the musician Lauv after one participant began broadcasting pornography to hundreds of attendees [...] "We did encounter an unwanted 'Zoombomb' during one of our sessions so we moved our latest performances to a different platform."
  27. ^ "How to Keep the Party Crashers from Crashing Your Zoom Event". March 20, 2020.
  28. ^ "Zoom Achieves FedRAMP "In Process" Milestone". Convergent. July 10, 2018. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  29. ^ "Is Zoom a HIPAA Compliant Video and Web Conferencing Platform?". HIPAA Journal. February 19, 2018. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  30. ^ "Build patient engagement with compliant video conferencing". www.bitpipe.com. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  31. ^ "Official Statement: EU GDPR Compliance". Zoom Help Center. Retrieved March 19, 2020.
  32. ^ "Awards Archives". Zoom blog. Retrieved March 26, 2020.
  33. ^ Mossberg, Walter S. (August 21, 2012). "A Chance To Call 15 Friends To Video Chat In High Def". Wall Street Journal.
  34. ^ Burt, Jeffrey (October 2, 2015). "Zoom Doubles Capacity of Video Conferencing Service to 50". eWeek. Retrieved November 19, 2015.
  35. ^ "Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing". Zoom Video. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
  36. ^ Brown, Shelby (March 10, 2020). "Skype vs. Zoom: Which video chat app is best for working from home?". CNET. Retrieved March 17, 2020.
  37. ^ "Announcement: Zoom Slack Integration". Zoom Blog. August 13, 2015. Retrieved June 8, 2016.
  38. ^ "Zoom Announces Native Skype for Business Interoperability". www.msn.com. Retrieved June 8, 2016.
  39. ^ Delony, David (September 15, 2015). "Zoom Announces Salesforce Integration". TMCnet. Retrieved November 19, 2015.
  40. ^ Young, Alicia (April 24, 2017). "Zoom Introduces New Telehealth Solution". TMCnet. Retrieved September 7, 2017.
  41. ^ Inc, Zoom Video Communications (April 20, 2017). "Zoom Launches Industry's First Scalable Cloud-Based Video Telehealth Solution". GlobeNewswire News Room. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  42. ^ Dignan, Larry (May 25, 2017). "Polycom, Zoom forge video conferencing, collaboration pact | ZDNet". ZDNet. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
  43. ^ St. John, Allen (March 24, 2020). "Zoom Calls Aren't as Private as You May Think. Here's What You Should Know". Consumer Reports. Retrieved March 26, 2020.
  44. ^ Kate O'Flaherty (March 25, 2020). "Zoom's A Lifeline During COVID-19: This Is Why It's Also A Privacy Risk". Forbes. Retrieved March 27, 2020. collects and stores personal data and shares it with third parties such as advertisers. But Zoom's policy also covers what it labels "customer content," or "the content contained in cloud recordings, and instant messages, files, whiteboards ... shared while using the service." This includes videos, transcripts that can be generated automatically, documents shared on screen, and the names of everyone on a call.
  45. ^ Morse, Jack (March 13, 2020). "Zoom is a work-from-home privacy disaster waiting to happen". Mashable. Retrieved March 26, 2020.
  46. ^ Oliver, Lindsay (March 19, 2020). "What You Should Know About Online Tools During the COVID-19 Crisis". Electronic Frontier Foundation.
  47. ^ "Concern over Zoom video conferencing after MoD bans it over security fears". March 25, 2020.
  48. ^ "Coronavirus: Cabinet talks held on Zoom days after software was banned by Ministry of Defence". Sky News.
  49. ^ a b St. Amour, Madeline. "Pivot to online raises concerns for FERPA, surveillance". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved March 26, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  50. ^ Cox, Joseph (March 26, 2020). "Zoom iOS App Sends Data to Facebook Even if You Don't Have a Facebook Account". Vice. Retrieved March 28, 2020.
  51. ^ Cox, Joseph (March 27, 2020). "Zoom Removes Code That Sends Data to Facebook". Vice. Retrieved March 28, 2020.
  52. ^ Chao, Jude (June 18, 2013). "Zoom Aims to Disrupt Video Conferencing Market". Enterprise Networking Planet.
  53. ^ "Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing". Zoom Video. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
  54. ^ "CVE-2018-15715". National Vulnerability Database. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
  55. ^ Leitschuh, Jonathan (July 9, 2019). "Zoom Zero Day: 4+ Million Webcams & maybe an RCE? Just get them to visit your website!". Medium. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
  56. ^ Anderson, Tim (July 9, 2019). "Anyone for unintended Chat Roulette? Zoom installs hidden Mac web server to allow auto-join video conferencing". The Register. Retrieved October 17, 2019.
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