The number of daily Zoom users passed the 200 million mark in March. Before the coronavirus outbreak, the record was about 10 million users in one day, according to Zoom-CEO Eric Yuan.
The use of Zoom and other forms of digital communication has increased exponentially in many countries since the introduction of lockdowns and advice to work from home. Employees of government institutions, schools, companies and other organisations are all forced to stay at home and still be able to work productively, after several measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus have disrupted a normal working week.
Zoom’s founder and general manager, Eric Yuan, wrote in a letter that the use of the app has increased significantly over the past period. By the end of 2019, the record number of free and paid users would have been 10 million in a single day. According to Yuan, more than 90,000 schools in twenty different countries are now using Zoom’s services to teach their students remotely.
Privacy issues
The sudden influx of so many users on Zoom has also led to a lot of privacy problems. The FBI recently warned users not to make meetings public and not to spread links. Indeed, the FBI received two reports that unidentified persons raided school sessions. This phenomenon is called Zoombombing and can be very harmful. Several incidents have already been reported in which individuals showed pornographic or racist material during Zoom meetings.
Employees of SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company, are no longer allowed to use the videoconferencing app, according to an internal memo accessed by Reuters. The memo states that the app causes ‘considerable privacy and security problems’. Yuan says he regrets the privacy problems. “We acknowledge that we are not meeting the expectations of the community. We will spend the next 90 days proactively identifying, addressing, and resolving issues better.”
Zoom’s shares have declined over the past few days, as the company is hurrying to resolve privacy issues as quickly as possible.
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