Internet of balloons
And what happened to Loon, the Alphabet subsidiary that planned to provide internet from balloons? After eight years of development, the company has yet to receive final approval for commercial testing anywhere in the world. But that all changed in March of this year. Citing the need to improve communications infrastructure to combat the coronavirus, the Kenyan government quickly granted permission to launch Loon. With several other countries watching the technology develop, it’s safe to say the project has taken off.
New successes don’t mean that MOOCs, smart thermometers, home 3D printers, and internet-delivering balloons will ever reach the heights their creators hoped for. It’s important to remember why these solutions didn’t succeed, but in a time of crisis when many systems are breaking down, it’s heartening to see the benefits that previously unpopular soThis story may sound familiar: a service becomes popular with users and attractive to investors, but suddenly it turns out to have content and privacy issues. We’ve seen this before with YouTube and Facebook, and now the same thing is happening with Zoom.
The problems with Zoom date back to 2015. Back in 2015, a Pennsylvania court sentenced a man to prison for distributing child pornography on Zoom. In his closing argument, U.S. Attorney Austin Berry called guatemala number data Zoom the “Netflix of child pornography.”
Zoom officials say the service has gotten better at controlling such content. But in the past few weeks, as Zoom's demand has skyrocketed, video conferencing has once again been targeted by pornographic attackers.
But for children who are currently taking online classes on Zoom, the consequences will be more serious. The service has put the responsibility of setting up protection against such attacks on the shoulders of teachers, but many of them may not know this.
Zoom is also allegedly violating children’s rights by sending data from their device to third parties, including Facebook. Zoom has since removed the lines of code intended to transmit information to the social network. But before that, Facebook managed to obtain various data about all Zoom users, including their time zones and identifiers used for advertising targeting.
After the story went viral, The New York Times reported that New York Attorney General Letitia James was investigating Zoom’s security and privacy practices. The Intercept also learned that Zoom does not provide end-to-end encryption, despite its marketing materials stating otherwise. Vice reported that Zoom had leaked emails and images from thousands of users.
The U.S. government has already taken several steps to regulate tech platforms that abuse children’s data. Last year, the FTC fined YouTube a record $170 million for allegedly violating children’s privacy laws. In some ways, it was a watershed moment for protecting children online. But the fine left both YouTube and parents angry and confused, because as part of the FTC settlement, YouTube agreed to label videos and channels for kids. That may seem like a simple enough requirement, but in practice it’s incredibly difficult to enforce. If Zoom decides to tighten its privacy protections, especially when it comes to young users, it could face similar challenges.lutions bring.
How Zoom Became a New Problem in the Tech Industry
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