Zoom CEO responds to security and privacy concerns: “We had some missteps”
Appearing before a background that said “we care” over an image of a heart-shaped planet Earth, Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan said Sunday on CNN that despite the company’s recent security problems, its “intentions are good.”
“We moved too fast… and we had some missteps,” Yuan said in an interview with CNN’s Brian Stelter. “We’ve learned our lessons and we’ve taken a step back to focus on privacy and security.”
Yuan earlier told the Wall Street Journal that he “really messed up as CEO” and that he felt “an obligation to win the users’ trust back.”
Yuan’s mea culpae follow a tumultuous few weeks for the videoconferencing platform. Zoom has seen its usage increase dramatically as people confined to their homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic have used it to stay in contact and conduct work and school. Yuan said in an April 1st blog post that the company reached 200 million daily meeting participants in March, up from 10 million in December.
Zoom has been the target of harassment, known as Zoombombing, where unwanted guests invade a meeting. And it’s been riddled with security issues, to the point that the company announced April 2nd it was pausing feature updates for 90 days to focus on privacy and security,
But security concerns about Zoom have compelled some school districts, including New York City, to ban the video conferencing platform for online classes, the Washington Post reported. The New York City Department of Education told teachers they should not use Zoom and conduct classes using rival service Microsoft Teams, according to the Post.
“We are still in the process of working together with them,” Yuan said Sunday of the New York school system, adding “We want Zoom to be a privacy-and security-first company.”
Appearing before a background that said “we care” over an image of a heart-shaped planet Earth, Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan said Sunday on CNN that despite the company’s recent security problems, its “intentions are good.” “We moved too fast… and we had some missteps,” Yuan said in an interview…
