Investors are angry with Zoom and they are not alone

Investors are angry with Zoom and they are not alone

Zoom Communications is definitely cornered right now. More and more lawsuits are being brought against the company. Citizens and consumers believe that their privacy has been violated. However, it is also shareholders who make themselves heard.

Angry investor - Michael Drieu - believe that Zoom broke the law by concealing the problems that arose. Listed companies are required by U.S. law to disclose events or concerns that could affect the share price. Only in this way can investors make an informed decision.

The angry investors argue that Zoom Communications has misled its shareholders. According to the indictment, the first rumors about problems with the Zoom software date from June 2019. There were then articles in the press, which stated, among other things, that it was saddened with safety. The quality of the encryption software which is not satisfactory. Zoom, however, hid the mistakes instead of tackling the problem.

Due to the pandemic and the worldwide lockdown, the demand for video conferences exploded and Zoom grew explosively. It was precisely this enormous demand that made it virtually impossible to cover up the existing problems and obscure them. The result was a sharp fall in prices, which costs the shareholders money. The sharp price drop could have been prevented if Zoom Communications had already tackled the problems in 2019. So, they demanded compensation.

Todd Hurwitz is not a professional investor, but he is angry. He is so angry that his privacy has been violated that he challenges not only Zoom Communications, but also Facebook and LinkedIn. Hurwitz accuses Facebook of creating detailed profiles of Zoom users. This made it possible for Facebook to further tighten its advertising policy. Conversely, thanks to those profiles, Zoom Communications was better able to determine which users could be persuaded to purchase paid services from Zoom.

LinkedIn also believed it could benefit from working with Zoom. Zoom users were offered to integrate LinkedIn Sales Navigator into the Zoom platform. LinkedIn uses this sales tool to approach potential customers which costs $ 780. By integrating this sales tool, a video conference host was able to view the participants' LinkedIn data, even if the participants were not consented to. Of course, LinkedIn was also allowed to receive the data Zoom collected.

Although Eric Yuan, founder of Zoom, issued an apology statement amid the number of claims from concerned users which continues to increase. Meanwhile, other companies that have actively worked with Zoom Communications are no longer safe. Their actions also look dubious!

How honest/independent is Zoom?

To everyone's surprise, it has become apparent that Zoom has a special interpretation of the concept of integrity. Because at the request of the Chinese authorities, Zoom blocked three online meetings in June organized by a Chinese dissident resident in the US. These were video conferences of "Humanitarian China" in the context of the commemoration of the student protests on Tianmenplein (1989). The Chinese government acted so brutally in those student protests that hundreds of fatalities were regretted.

Because Zoom must comply with the applicable local legislation, accounts can be put on hold (for example, when it concerns illegal practices), but this is not allowed under any circumstances with accounts from outside that country. But, in this case it did.

Zoom now acknowledges that they have indeed blocked accounts and ended meetings several times. In a blog on their own website, Zoom puts on the penance and explains in detail what went wrong. Not only the activist who resides in the US was taken offline, but also two other users - also outside China - were blocked.

Zoom further claims that it is merely the mission to connect people and he freely admits that this act on behalf of the Chinese authority was unlawful. So again after the harm has already been done.

One of the student leaders of the time, Wang, has issued a statement stating that Zoom's actions have affected his privacy. He, therefore, believes that Zoom’s statement is too weak and does not do justice to the seriousness of the abuses that have taken place.