Zoom agrees to pay ‘historic’ $85 million in damages to Zoombombing graphical claims | Zoom

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought an upsurge in “zoom bombardment” as hackers and scammers in virtual meetings bumped into offensive messages and photos. Now, Zoom has agreed to pay “historic” $85 million in damages as part of a class-action settlement filed by its users, including church groups that said they were traumatized by the unrest.

As part of the settlement agreement, Zoom Video Communications, the company behind the teleconferencing app that has grown in popularity during the pandemic, will pay users $85 million in cash compensation as well as implement reforms to its business practices.

On Thursday, Federal Judge Laurel Beller of California gave final approval to the agreement that was first introduced in July. The agreement was granted initial approval in October.

The settlement stems from 14 class complaints filed against the San Jose-based company by users between March and May of 2020, in which they argued that the company violated their privacy and security.

In one incident two years ago, St. Paul Lutheran Church in San Francisco was hosting a Bible study class in which most of the participants were elderly. However, shortly after the hearing, “Zoom allowed a “known criminal”… to “Zoombomb” to dismiss,” according to a federal lawsuit filed in May 2020.

According to the lawsuit, their computer screens were hijacked and control buttons disabled while they were forced to watch pornographic videos, including images of child sexual abuse and physical abuse.

The host was unable to get the kidnapper out of the meeting room and asked the participants to leave and join the meeting, only for the kidnapper to bombard the meeting again with graphic content. The lawsuit said the incident left the host and participants “shocked and helpless.”

In another incident in April 2020, participants who joined virtual Sunday services at Oak Live Church in Auckland via Zoom were bombarded with images of child sexual abuse.

According to court documents reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, “Participants at that meeting, many of whom were initially trauma survivors, were shocked and traumatized.

The documents added: “Oak Live Church has been asked to hire trauma counselors and set up support groups to help congregants deal with the resulting trauma.”

In addition to failing to prevent Zoombombings, prosecutors in the case accused Zoom of illegally sharing data with authorized third parties such as Facebook, Google and LinkedIn and misrepresenting the strength of end-to-end encryption protocols.

Mark Mulumvi, one of the attorneys representing Zoom in the case, described the settlement as “pioneering” in a statement, adding that it will also implement privacy practices that, from now on, will help ensure the safety and protection of users.

According to Molumphy, paying users and those who submit claims will be eligible to receive 30% of the subscription payments they made during the term and others will receive approximately $29. There are about 150 million members in the settlement class, which includes both paying and non-paying users, and compensation amounts may change, depending on the number of claims made.

“In an age of corporate surveillance, this historic settlement recognizes data as the new oil and compensates consumers for inadvertently providing data in exchange for a ‘free’ service,” plaintiff attorney Tina Wolfson said in a statement Friday.

“It also compensates those who paid for a product they did not receive, and Zoom is committed to changing the company’s behavior to better inform consumers of their privacy options and provide stronger cyber security,” she added.

As part of the settlement, Zoom has agreed to more than a dozen changes to its business practices designed to “improve meeting security, strengthen privacy disclosures and protect consumer data,” according to court documents.

As part of these changes, the company is required to develop and maintain a user support ticket system to track reports of meeting disturbances, a documented process for communicating with law enforcement regarding disturbances involving illegal content, a meeting suspend button and the ability to ban users from certain countries.