Since their debut into everyday use, videoconferencing technologies have received their fair share of backlash for security and privacy concerns. Just last year in April 2020, BBC reported that Zoom had been accused of transmitting user-data to Facebook and misleading users about guaranteed end-to-end encryption [3]. An ex-NSA hacker tweeted warnings about the potential for microphone and webcam hijacking on MAC devices [3]. High-confidentiality government institutions, include NASA, prohibited employees from using Zoom [3]. In the same month, the Verge and Bloomberg published reports on Zoom disclosing personal information to third parties.
Even more concerning, though, after a year in the market, Zoom is still working on "security enhancements" [4]. On April 2022, Zoom released a new feature (indicating that this feature did not exist before) that "hides user personal information in contact details. The affected fields are: personal note, company, department, manager, job title, locations, internal number, extension, direct number, phone number, email" [5]. These concerns, though, are not unique to Zoom.
Microsoft Teams has also received negative attention for its security and privacy practices. TechRadar expressed concerns about Microsoft allowing meeting moderators to modify chat logs by deleting messages which could potentially lead to serious miscommunication, loss of context, and uneasy conversations about censorship [6].
Despite these controversies and the wide gap between in-person and virtual communication, videoconferencing technologies have become a routine part of many people's lives and Zoom has emerged as the victor in this market. How did this happen?
We frame this next discussion as one about overcoming the "liability of newness" [7]. See Liability of Newness for discussion.
