zoom was *never* supposed to be the go-to for b2c or c2c communication — the company’s always pitchied itself as a business-first solution. they’re literally gonna have to spin off an entire new subsidary at this rate https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1245629468288225282

I’m going to shout this from the fucking mountaintops even though nobody’s going to listen: this isn’t going to change anything. the only targeting and tracking zoom does is on the enterprise level, and by enterprise customers, not zoom itself —

the reason i never wrote about it is because this is frankly so boring that it would put most people to sleep but the short n easy version is this

any targeting/tracking happening on zoom is done via a vast marketplace of integrations, seen here: http://marketplace.zoom.us 

zoom’s only pitch in plugging in these third parties is that they allow _the company on the other end_ to do the tracking and targeting on the person they’re talking to. zoom is just the channel where it happens, so to speak

if consumer a talks to company b on zoom and finds that they’re being retargeted w shit from the call, you could argue that zoom is liable, but you’d prob be wrong. the way these sorts of supply chains usually work is that responsibility gets pushed to the end user (company b)

it’s up to the *companies initiating these calls* to garner any modicum of consent as far as zoom is concerned, bc these are the companies choosing to do any tracking in the first place. zoom always leaves that possibility open but it _definitely doesn’t_ happen by default

which is why any changes being proposed here are pure security theater that won’t *actually* change anything abt zoom’s core tech, afaik. the bulk of what most of us would call “data mining” (for targeted ad purposes, at least) was never zoom’s prob to begin with, from their POV

yes this shit is complicated and yes there’s more players than you’d probably expect in the “zoom privacy scare saga” but that’s how fucking adtech works: responsibility for heinous shit is generally funneled to end users who are, without a doubt, unable to fight back

and these companies *know* how tangled and opaque these supply chains are and keep on getting away with promises of privacy/security that don’t actually promise anything. it’s what always happens and I’m getting tired of writing this drek over and over https://gizmodo.com/facebooks-clear-history-tool-doesnt-clear-shit-1841305764

this was a longwinded way of saying “zoom isn’t fucked when you compare it to the entire fucked-up ecosystem” but maybe that excuse doesn’t fly anymore

* ofc all the above is written explicitly about _consumer data_ and market segmentation etc, which are clear cut “privacy” issues. “security” issues (breaches and the like) are other serious fucking problems w far easier fixes that zoom def needs *

im writing this at 6am after an anxiety-fueled all nighter but i hope at least some of this was coherent/explained how this shit works, to the best of my knowledge/after spending hrs reading zoom’s b2b documentation

turns out I’m not the only one thinking along these lines!!!!! https://twitter.com/chronotope/status/1245700721040920576?s=21 https://twitter.com/chronotope/status/1245700721040920576