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Washington to Zoom: Welcome to the hot seat

Yuan, a Chinese-born billionaire who worked for rival video conferencing provider WebEx and the networking powerhouse Cisco, helped lead Zoom to a multibillion-dollar valuation in the late 2010s. His company has risen to prominence despite facing steep competition from behemoths like Microsoft-owned Skype, in part due to Zoom’s easy-to-use interface and the absence of sign-up requirements.

But as the pandemic has catapulted Zoom into the spotlight, the public pressure on the company and its CEO is only growing.

Blumenthal demanded in a letter Tuesday that Zoom disclose what data it collects, stores and shares. New York state Attorney General Tish James separately pressed Zoom in a missive “to ensure the company is taking appropriate steps to ensure users’ privacy and security are protected,” a spokesperson for the AG confirmed to POLITICO.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a top privacy and cybersecurity hawk, also said Wednesday he’s “looking into” reports of vulnerabilities in the service. “As government agencies, companies, and educational institutions rapidly shift to teleworking, it is vital that the video conferencing tools used by tens of millions of Americans every day are secure,” he told POLITICO.

In interviews with and statements to POLITICO over the past few days, public officials indicated that those efforts are starting to coalesce.

Blumenthal, for one, said he’s discussed his concerns over Zoom’s conduct with Senate colleagues and law enforcement officials, including James and other state attorneys general. “I think there’s some common themes in the scrutiny that Zoom is receiving,” he said, such as privacy, security and harmful content.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said Friday that his office is investigating „what Zoom does to protect people on its platform.”

„We’re in the investigation stage and we’ll know more as we get more information from Zoom and through our inquiry,” he said, hours after POLITICO first reported that Connecticut and other states are banding together to look into the company’s practices.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is part of the coordinated effort and has been in contact with Zoom, her spokesperson told POLITICO on Friday. On Tuesday, an online University of Florida student meeting fell victim to a “Zoom bombing” incident in which an intruder on the platform bombarded participants with racist messages, swastikas, pornography and death threats.

In an interview with POLITICO on Friday, Zoom Chief Legal Officer Aparna Bawa said the company fully intends to comply with the information requests it has received from U.S. officials.

„We as a company, our culture is based on transparency, even internally, and we take privacy and security very seriously,“ she said. „We definitely understand that our customers have choices about what they can use and we have an obligation to take it very seriously. We’re very committed to it, so absolutely, yes.“

Bawa said other regulatory bodies have contacted the company, beyond those publicly disclosed, but declined to specify further.

Yuan said Zoom will stop producing new features for the next three months and will instead be “shifting all our engineering resources to focus on our biggest trust, safety, and privacy issues.” Zoom over the past couple weeks has also added more details about its data collection practices — which included little-known sharing arrangements with Facebook and LinkedIn — as well as its privacy policy. It has also provided users with more information about how to safeguard themselves against abusive content.

Source: politico.com
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