It’s cybersecurity day!  Again.  Remember when I said that Zoom was adding end-to-end encryption, but only for users with paid plans?  Never mind.  Now, it will be available to ALL users.

Zoom’s CEO Eric Yuan announced yesterday in a blog post (hey, he blogs too!) that the videoconferencing company will begin to offer end-to-end encryption to all users – including free users – beginning in July, as an early beta. Zoom had previously stated that end-to-end encryption would be available only to paid customers.  Here’s what he said:

“Today, Zoom released an updated E2EE design on GitHub. We are also pleased to share that we have identified a path forward that balances the legitimate right of all users to privacy and the safety of users on our platform. This will enable us to offer E2EE as an advanced add-on feature for all of our users around the globe – free and paid – while maintaining the ability to prevent and fight abuse on our platform.

To make this possible, Free/Basic users seeking access to E2EE will participate in a one-time process that will prompt the user for additional pieces of information, such as verifying a phone number via a text message. Many leading companies perform similar steps on account creation to reduce the mass creation of abusive accounts. We are confident that by implementing risk-based authentication, in combination with our current mix of tools — including our Report a User function — we can continue to prevent and fight abuse.”

According to CNBC, Zoom’s revenue grew 169 percent in the most recent quarter as its usage mounted, and the company’s stock price has increased about 250 percent so far this year.  Good to be Zoom right now – they have made some tasty lemonade out of the lemons we have all been dealt this year with the COVID-19 pandemic.

So, what do you think?  Are you glad to see this announcement from Zoom?  Or are you still wary of using Zoom (if you were before, that is)?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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