> Be indemnified by me if it turns out someone else owns the IP or has their rights infringed<p>Does this mean Zoom expects their users to take on the legal burden if someone on a call uses a copyrighted image on a PowerPoint slide?
The indemnification for IP is a standard term that exists in all SaaS terms. What it's saying is "if you upload copyrighted/infringing material to our service and someone sues us because of it, you have to pay our legal costs since we had nothing to do with it".<p>This is a pretty reasonable thing, you're the one who uploaded the material, you're responsible for it, especially since zoom isn't checking/filtering what you upload/share.
Hi there, I'm the COO of Zoom. We currently do not use audio, video or chat content to train AI models and we would not do so without customer consent. Please see our blog <a href="https://blog.zoom.us/zooms-term-service-ai/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://blog.zoom.us/zooms-term-service-ai/</a>
I feel like we are dangerously close to the situation where companies don't even put this in the ToS.<p>"Better to ask for forgiveness than for permission."<p>See also Uber, who broke the rules and got away with it, and in fact built their empire on top of breaking the law.<p>We should not let companies get away with this. In fact, CEOs of such companies should face prison time. Otherwise it would be too easy to steal your user's data, let your company go bankrupt and start a new company based on the stolen data.
I understand that people are (rightfully) upset by these terms. This is the first post I've seen saying they're rejecting Zoom calls, but I've seen plenty of comments on HN over the last few days on this topic saying roughly the same.<p>My question is: what are you doing for work where you can just decline any invitation that comes from a specific service? That's not realistic at all for most people. Is there a solution for those people?
I see 4 competitors in this space (consumer video-conferencing SaaS):<p>- Zoom<p>- Google Meet<p>- MS Teams<p>- Jitsi (free)<p>I try and avoid Google products where I can but it seems like the least worst option here (I use Jitsi when I can but it's limited). Is there a 5th option out there?<p>I have tried Discord, it's reasonable, but the UX is kinda crazy for anyone not used to it - very hard to convince non-gamers to use it.
Between this and the "RTO or GTFO" story going around on Blind, my new conspiracy theory is there is some kind of power struggle going on at zoom leadership and the senior leadership team is intent on burning zoom to the ground.<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/851503362" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://vimeo.com/851503362</a>
Related discussion from yesterday (1500 votes, 480 comments):<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37021160">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37021160</a>
My problem as a coach is, everything else is bad. Google Meet video quality feels like the 90s, they optimize for traffic costs. MS Teams is not easily usable from a meeting URL, but quality is higher than Google Meet. Other offers are often unreliable or low quality.<p>When working with a trainer for my language/pronunciation I also found out that many solutions have abysmal sound quality, Zoom is best by far.
>Be indemnified by me if it turns out someone else owns the IP or has their rights infringed (for example to confidential materials everyone on the call is entitled to review).<p>IANAL but that's not quite what the terms say.<p>>25. INDEMNIFICATION<p>>To the extent not prohibited by applicable Law, you agree to indemnify, defend, and hold Zoom and its affiliates and each of our licensors and suppliers (“Indemnified Parties”) harmless, including any officers, directors, employees, shareholders, members, consultants, and agents of the Indemnified Parties, from any third party allegation, claim, proceeding, liability, damage, or cost (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) <i>arising out of or related to (i) your or your End User’s use of the Services or Software, (ii) your or your End User’s breach of this Agreement or violation of applicable Law, (iii) your or your End User’s infringement or violation of any Proprietary Rights or other right of any person or entity, (iv) your relationship with your End User or any dispute between you and your End User, or (v) a personal injury or property damage to a third party relating to your or your End User’s acts or omissions</i><p>(emphasis mine)<p>You'd really have to stretch the definition of "your or your End User’s use of the Services or Software" to include zoom running their AI training (unbeknownst to the user) for it to be included. What this clause is intended to cover is cases like you using zoom to commit some sort of crime (eg. streaming movies/sports matches), and zoom gets used along with you.
I was waiting for this Zoom development to hit the headlines so I could share it with my friends. It's out now:<p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/07/zoom-ai-tools-trained-using-some-customer-data.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/07/zoom-ai-tools-trained-using-...</a>
From 10.4:<p>> Notwithstanding the above, Zoom will not use audio, video or chat Customer Content to train our artificial intelligence models without your consent.<p>Right. And you've given consent by agreeing to the terms in the first sentence:<p>> You agree to grant and hereby grant Zoom [an absolute] license and all other rights...to perform all acts with respect to the Customer Content...
At work, there is a whole process and checklists for "approved" software. Zoom is one of them. Most Microsoft software are in this approved list. Our work laptops are locked down and you can't install anything. Our development laptops are a bit more open, but they are monitored as well. However this is not the issue.<p>How do you get a whole organization of several thousand people to move from zoom to another platform? In my experience, this has only happened because the provider simply could not meet the QoS/ToS, or they were priced out.<p>Also, most people just don't care. They just want something working well. We've got Cisco webex and Microsoft teams, but guess what most people prefer? Zoom. Because "it just works better".
I recommend Jitsi over Zoom for lots of reasons, but "AI" isn't some magical new danger point.<p>* Most of the legal terms are standard for internet services.<p>* Any and all unencrypted internet communication will be monitored by the services hosting that communication.<p>* If we replace "AI" with "automation tools", then this is a nothing burger.<p>Or to put it another way, Does anyone really think Zoom (or other internet services) aren't running automated tools to catch/ block/ report child porn? How do folks think those automation tools are trained?<p>If you don't want service providers monitoring your communication, ENCRYPT IT. Otherwise, it doesn't matter if they're using the "AI" boogeyman or older automation tools.
Ironically, my company can't use Jitsi because it isn't a certified "secure" platform per FedRAMP[1]. If Jitsi were ever granted FedRAMP certification, I'd be charging full steam ahead to get my company to switch.<p>[1] <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2020/Aug/14/2002477667/-1/-1/0/CSI_%20SELECTING_AND_USING_COLLABORATION_SERVICES_SECURELY_FULL_20200814.PDF" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://media.defense.gov/2020/Aug/14/2002477667/-1/-1/0/CSI...</a>
This is Michael Adams, Zoom’s CISO. I want to reiterate our thanks for your feedback and emphasize our continuing commitment to protecting our customers’ data as we make exciting improvements to Zoom products.<p>At Zoom, we do not use customer audio, video, and chat to train our generative AI models without customer consent.<p>You can learn more about enabling generative AI features, consent, and notice here: <a href="https://blog.zoom.us/zooms-term-service-ai/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://blog.zoom.us/zooms-term-service-ai/</a>
OK big question<p>If Jitsi doesn't require a user account, how do they prevent a bunch of random bots using up all their resources with sybil attacks?<p>How do they pay for all that bandwidth, for TURN servers etc?<p>What are the economics of it basically
As important as drawing the casus belli is laying out alternatives. What are the alternatives to Zoom, supporting Linux, OSX, mobile and Windows, with decent terms of use?
Jitsi is great but has limitations. I use Nextcloud Talk. Nextcloud is self hosted and includes many apps that can be easily activated. Talk is full featured and includes mobile apps that allow people to call each other directly along with everything you would expect from a messenger. Federation with the 400K+ NC installations is WIP.
Tangentially related: does anybody know which of the teleconferencing solution has the best audio quality? I'm looking into live music streaming and Zoom/Google Meet seem to offer subpar sound quality, optimizing for latency and using other aspects like noise reduction.
It is worth mentioning that these terms of service (specifically subsection 10.2) are completely illegal under EU's GDPR. It is a matter of time before someone takes them to court.
Zoom already has multiple offerings with different privacy policies. For example Zoom.us (Zoom for US Government) vs Regular Zoom. Wouldn't be surprised if this comes later in different tiers of pricing and data privacy.
Hi there, this is Aparna, COO of Zoom. We’ve updated our terms of service (in section 10.4) to further confirm that we will not use audio, video, or chat customer content to train our artificial intelligence models without your consent. Please take a look. <a href="https://blog.zoom.us/zooms-term-service-ai/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://blog.zoom.us/zooms-term-service-ai/</a>
While we are it, please don't conduct the meeting in MS Teams unless you are 100% sure that none of the attendees will use Firefox.<p>(Brave also didn't work but refreshing multiple times worked, don't know, why MS wants to pinpoint Edge or Chrome for Teams)