Zoom’s latest terms of service update rang some alarm bells and Google’s cleaning up its user list.
Zoom conferencing service changes terms of service, appears to be asking for sweeping permissions from users
Last week, Zoom published an update to its terms of service under which users of the application agree to abide.
It appeared to give the company wide-ranging rights to train artificial intelligence using the content created by customers
Within days, Zoom’s chief product officer, Smita Hashim, posted a clarifying article to “confirm that we will not use audio, video, or chat customer content to train our artificial intelligence models without your consent.”
The implications are profound. Doctors who use video conferencing services when attending to remote patients need a service that is compliant with government regulations around privacy and security of personal information.
And insurance companies. And post-secondary institutions. And courts of law.
Not to mention people and companies working in creative industries where rights to materials are carefully controlled.
While Zoom has amended section 10.2 and added a qualifying clause to 10.4 – the two sections that were most problematic – anyone using Zoom should be rethinking that subscription fee.
Back in 2020, Zoom was in hot water for sharing, against the rules and without customers knowing, information with Facebook.
There are other video conferencing services available, including
Google’s going to start deactivating accounts that haven’t been used in two years
Some of you may remember when Google was first getting going, when you had to get an invite to sign up for a Gmail account.
Well, Google has lots of users these days. Maybe too many, if a recent campaign is an indication.
Google’s letting people know about its policy about deactivating “inactive” accounts, which is an account that has not been used for two years.
A support article makes it clear what you need to do to keep your account active. And the company won’t actually deactivate your account without first trying to let you know that your account is in an inactive state.
But if you let things go for too long, Google reserves the right to delete your account and the data associated with it.
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