With the increasing usage of video conferencing applications, Zoom is coming out on top. People aren’t just using it for school and work; people are using the app to have virtual happy hours and games of D&D so they can practice social distancing.
But with more and more people using the app, Zoom’s faults are becoming more and more obvious.
One of the complaints people have been having is that too much power is given to the ‘host’ of the meeting. Some saying that a host’s capabilities during a virtual meeting oversteps privacy boundaries.
One of the features under fire is called “attention tracking”. This allows the host to be notified if an attendee is looking at something besides Zoom for more than 30 seconds. Attendees are also never made aware of when attention tracking is turned on. Users are claiming that this constant, secretive screen monitoring is making them uneasy.
Zoom also allows hosts to record meetings, which may not sound too bad at first, until you find out that only the host can rewatch any meetings that have been recorded.
If these two features weren’t bad enough, there’s now a new trend where internet troll’s called “Zoombombers” are hacking into stranger’s meeting and showing explicit content to everyone in attendance. People who are holding work meetings, online lectures, religious services, and virtual happy hours are reporting attacks of Zoombombers hacking into their meeting and bombarding the viewers screen with explicit videos and pictures.
Luckily there are some steps users can take to prevent these attacks from happening.
What do you guys think? Are these just minor privacy invasions? Or do they cross the line? What video conferencing apps do you use?