Zoom Video Communications has agreed to pay $ 85 million in a court settlement. Last year, a class action lawsuit was filed in a California court accusing the company of, among other things, poor privacy controls.
The proposed agreement has yet to be approved by District Judge Lucy Koh. The settlement hearing is scheduled for October 21 in San Jose, California, AP reported.
Millions of people in the U.S. who have used Zoom since March 31, 2020 may qualify for part of the deal reached Saturday, according to AP. According to estimates in court documents, payment amounts are expected to average $ 34 or $ 35 for those subscribing to the paid version of Zoom, and $ 11 or $ 12 for the vast majority of those using the free version of the program.
Zoom – class action
In a class action lawsuit filed in California last year, Zoom Video Communications was accused of sharing data with Facebook, Google and LinkedIn without users’ consent. In addition, the American company was blamed for poor system security, which made it impossible to stop cyber attacks. It’s about “Zoombombing”, that is, hackers hacking into videoconferencing meetings.
Most of the incidents mentioned in the lawsuit happened last year when people staying at home remotely turned their video conferencing service from a niche product into a cultural phenomenon due to the COVID-19 pandemic, AP notes. Almost overnight, Zoom became a place for business, school and social meetings, as well as in the face of a deadly pandemic – funerals.
Zoom said Monday it was acting quickly to tighten security following reports of hacking meetings. However, it did not admit any abuses in the settlement.
The company’s annual revenues from the Silicon Valley quadrupled in 2020 to nearly US $ 2.7 billion.
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