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Hi there - this is Aparna from Zoom, our Chief Operating Officer. Thank you for your care and concern for our customers - we are grateful for the opportunity to

Hi there - this is Aparna from Zoom, our Chief Operating Officer. Thank you for your care and concern for our customers - we are grateful for the opportunity to double click on how we treat customer content. To clarify, Zoom customers decide whether to enable generative AI features (recently launched on a free trial basis) and separately whether to share customer content with Zoom for product improvement purposes. Also, Zoom participants receive an in-meeting notice or a Chat Compose pop-up when these features are enabled through our UI, and they will definitely know their data may be used for product improvement purposes.

23B1 3y ago
Thanks for your response, but as you can see in the comments even HN users are confused about this. Where can we find the ability to 'switch off' any sort of generative AI features or data harvesting? I ask because the zoom administrative interface is an absolute nightmare that feels more like a bunch of darkpatterns than usable UX. When I asked your customer support team – on this occasion and others – they clearly don't even read the request, let alone provide a sufficient response. I've been going back-and-forth on a related issue with your CSRs for almost two months; they've neither escalated nor solved my problem. The bottom line is that as a paying customer, you're incentivizing me and others to move to different services – namely because you seem to be entangled by your own bureaucracy and lack of values than any outside problem.
j45 3y ago
One of the major faults of Zoom possibly from the rate of change in it is how many features are buried in the web configuration that are not in the physical application. Seamless integration and access between the two is not where it should be.
oltre 3y ago
Answer unsatisfactory. With the recent T&C update, Zoom committed (business) suicide. A memorable fail story to avoid. Goodbye forever, Zoom.
tailspin2019 3y ago
When you say “Zoom customers decide … whether to share customer content with Zoom”… Can you elaborate on whether this is opt-out or opt-in? Does a new user who starts to use Zoom today have this turned on by default? Usually when companies say things like “customers decide” it can gloss over a lot of detail like hidden settings that default to “on” or other potentially misleading / dark patterns. Given the obvious interest in the finite details being discussed in this thread, and your legal background, it would be good to hear a bit more of a comprehensive response if you can provide it.
- aparnabzoom 3y ago
  Hi there - this is opt in. A new user starting to use Zoom today does not have this turned on by default.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - tailspin2019 3y ago
    Thanks for participating in the discussion here, it’s helpful. Clause 10.4 in your terms seems to grant you rights to do pretty much anything with “Customer Content” (including the AI training specifically being talked about). So I’m still a bit confused because regardless of any opt in mechanism in your product, these usage terms don’t seem to be predicated on the user having done anything to opt in other than ostensibly agreeing to your terms of service? In other words, as a Zoom user who has deliberately NOT opted in to anything, I still don’t have a lot of confidence in the rights being granted to you via your standard terms over my content. The wording of the terms imply that you don’t actually need me to opt in for you to have these rights over my data?
    - aparnabzoom 3y ago
      Thanks for your question - we have clarified our position in this blog. We do not use video, audio and chat content to train our AI models without customer consent. Please read more here https://blog.zoom.us/zooms-term-service-ai/ https://blog.zoom.us/zooms-term-service-ai/
jonReadingNews 3y ago
I can’t help but notice the distinction between between customers _deciding_ and participants being _informed_. Can participants not also decide? Can the decisions not be mutual and decided per-session? My child uses zoom for school and our family for healthcare - both of those scenarios make us participants. It sounds like we are beholden to the decisions of your customer, the institutions. I am extremely concerned and intending to initiate discussions and suggesting alternatives promptly this week.
- jonReadingNews 3y ago
  The blog post your company just published confirms this: Account owners or administrators (“customers”) provide consent. Participants receive notice. Gross and disappointing.
  - lucb1e 3y ago
    That's not how consent works in the GDPR legal sense. (But maybe that's not something Zoom USA cares about if an insignificant amount of profit comes from EU.)
webmink 3y ago
Thanks for commenting. The issue is not with using AI features though - it is with the Terms granting you unrestricted and eternal use to our conversations to train your AI and potentially disclose our work to your other customers.
- j45 3y ago
  Well said. Zoom thinks we are not talking about the terms of service as it pertains to a particular feature and not their entire rights moving forward.
88j88 3y ago
Remember when Zoom lied about having strong encryption, and sharing data without permission? https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/zoom-to-pay-85m-for-lying-about-encryption-and-sending-data-to-facebook-and-google/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/zoom-to-pay-85m-...
jentophoneyvo 3y ago
As a voice actor whose sole income is my voice, ANYONE claiming the right to my voice for training AI and speech modeling is 100% unauthorized and unacceptable under any circumstance.
infanteaj 3y ago
I certainly do not want my private chats, meetings, nor any non-public company information shared with anyone else. This seems like a massive privacy breach. Where is the opt-out to disable this?
- instagib 3y ago
  No settings in the iOS app. They do share things with third parties. Feel free to read through the pages of recently updated policies. I wonder what data is “retained” and where “overseas” among other concerns they state.

23B1 3y ago

Thanks for your response, but as you can see in the comments even HN users are confused about this. Where can we find the ability to 'switch off' any sort of generative AI features or data harvesting? I ask because the zoom administrative interface is an absolute nightmare that feels more like a bunch of darkpatterns than usable UX. When I asked your customer support team – on this occasion and others – they clearly don't even read the request, let alone provide a sufficient response. I've been going back-and-forth on a related issue with your CSRs for almost two months; they've neither escalated nor solved my problem. The bottom line is that as a paying customer, you're incentivizing me and others to move to different services – namely because you seem to be entangled by your own bureaucracy and lack of values than any outside problem.

j45 3y ago

One of the major faults of Zoom possibly from the rate of change in it is how many features are buried in the web configuration that are not in the physical application. Seamless integration and access between the two is not where it should be.

oltre 3y ago

Answer unsatisfactory. With the recent T&C update, Zoom committed (business) suicide. A memorable fail story to avoid. Goodbye forever, Zoom.

tailspin2019 3y ago

When you say “Zoom customers decide … whether to share customer content with Zoom”… Can you elaborate on whether this is opt-out or opt-in? Does a new user who starts to use Zoom today have this turned on by default? Usually when companies say things like “customers decide” it can gloss over a lot of detail like hidden settings that default to “on” or other potentially misleading / dark patterns. Given the obvious interest in the finite details being discussed in this thread, and your legal background, it would be good to hear a bit more of a comprehensive response if you can provide it.

aparnabzoom 3y ago
Hi there - this is opt in. A new user starting to use Zoom today does not have this turned on by default.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tailspin2019 3y ago
  Thanks for participating in the discussion here, it’s helpful. Clause 10.4 in your terms seems to grant you rights to do pretty much anything with “Customer Content” (including the AI training specifically being talked about). So I’m still a bit confused because regardless of any opt in mechanism in your product, these usage terms don’t seem to be predicated on the user having done anything to opt in other than ostensibly agreeing to your terms of service? In other words, as a Zoom user who has deliberately NOT opted in to anything, I still don’t have a lot of confidence in the rights being granted to you via your standard terms over my content. The wording of the terms imply that you don’t actually need me to opt in for you to have these rights over my data?
  - aparnabzoom 3y ago
    Thanks for your question - we have clarified our position in this blog. We do not use video, audio and chat content to train our AI models without customer consent. Please read more here https://blog.zoom.us/zooms-term-service-ai/ https://blog.zoom.us/zooms-term-service-ai/

jonReadingNews 3y ago

I can’t help but notice the distinction between between customers _deciding_ and participants being _informed_. Can participants not also decide? Can the decisions not be mutual and decided per-session? My child uses zoom for school and our family for healthcare - both of those scenarios make us participants. It sounds like we are beholden to the decisions of your customer, the institutions. I am extremely concerned and intending to initiate discussions and suggesting alternatives promptly this week.

jonReadingNews 3y ago
The blog post your company just published confirms this: Account owners or administrators (“customers”) provide consent. Participants receive notice. Gross and disappointing.
- lucb1e 3y ago
  That's not how consent works in the GDPR legal sense. (But maybe that's not something Zoom USA cares about if an insignificant amount of profit comes from EU.)

webmink 3y ago

Thanks for commenting. The issue is not with using AI features though - it is with the Terms granting you unrestricted and eternal use to our conversations to train your AI and potentially disclose our work to your other customers.

j45 3y ago
Well said. Zoom thinks we are not talking about the terms of service as it pertains to a particular feature and not their entire rights moving forward.

88j88 3y ago

Remember when Zoom lied about having strong encryption, and sharing data without permission? https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/zoom-to-pay-85m-for-lying-about-encryption-and-sending-data-to-facebook-and-google/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/zoom-to-pay-85m-...

jentophoneyvo 3y ago

As a voice actor whose sole income is my voice, ANYONE claiming the right to my voice for training AI and speech modeling is 100% unauthorized and unacceptable under any circumstance.

infanteaj 3y ago

I certainly do not want my private chats, meetings, nor any non-public company information shared with anyone else. This seems like a massive privacy breach. Where is the opt-out to disable this?

instagib 3y ago
No settings in the iOS app. They do share things with third parties. Feel free to read through the pages of recently updated policies. I wonder what data is “retained” and where “overseas” among other concerns they state.