[olliej]

That gives an explanation but doesn’t actually answer the question - “why is it doing this when I’m not using zoom”

Plenty of people use conference rooms for non video chat reasons, and many of those reason have confidentiality rules.

I know for example there are strict rules around what is required to protect client/lawyer confidentiality, and most of the protection goes out the window if you record, or allow some one else to record them. Would zoom listening in on that count? I have no idea

The only class of apps that have any business using a microphone while not in active use are “assistants”, and those have no business doing anything other than listening for their initiator phrase (except haven’t they all been caught sending arbitrary recordings to their parent company?)

[actually_a_dog]

I can assure you Zoom is not doing anything that would legally constitute "recording." In all US states and probably a lot of countries, recording is illegal without the consent of at least one party to the conversation. In the US, in some states, all parties must consent to recording. If Zoom were even skirting the line here, their lawyers would put the kibosh on it real quick.

Hmm... but, then again, there was that thing where Amazon Alexa was recording people without their knowledge... hmm.

[chillfox]

I have seen the general sentiment of "their own lawyers would stop it" expressed many times about many different things, but who tells the lawyers?

Every place I have worked in the past there have been zero pathway for IT/Developers to notify a lawyer about anything or ask a question.

[actually_a_dog]

Really? At places I've been, you could definitely notify a lawyer of an issue, with the process ranging from walking up to their desk to looking up someone in the legal department and emailing them. I've never had cause to actually do it, but I certainly could have, had the situation warranted it.

[chillfox]

Not everywhere has lawyers on staff or an easily searchable directory with accurate titles and department names.

[RHSeeger]

> If Zoom were even skirting the line here, their lawyers would put the kibosh on it real quick.

And then the people in charge of the money would do the math on "this earns us 1 billion dollars and the fine has a 10% chance of happening and would be 100 million... so do it anyways, it's worth the tradeoff". This happens over and over.

[trasz]

On the other hand, like any other American company Zoom can be “asked” by intelligence services to “cooperate” - and there is no law that would protect its users against it.

[rvnx]

"American". The coincidence that "Zoom" and "Zhumu" share the same platform.

https://thenextweb.com/news/zooms-scary-webcam-flaw-also-aff...

[trasz]

It doesn't matter - the company is American, thus it can be "convinced" into cooperating.

[jamessb]

> If Zoom were even skirting the line here, their lawyers would put the kibosh on it real quick

Their lawyers didn't stop them from claiming to provide end-to-end encryption, a blatant misrepresentation that resulted in receiving a consent order from the FTC [1] and settling a class-action suit for $85M [2], so I don't think it's safe to assume that they would prevent the company from doing obviously unacceptable things.

[1]: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/1923167zoom...

[2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/zoom-to-pay-85m-...

[olliej]

> I can assure you Zoom is not doing anything that would legally constitute "recording."

No need to use quotes here, that was literally my question :D

> In all US states and probably a lot of countries, recording is illegal without the consent of at least one party to the conversation. In the US, in some states, all parties must consent to recording.

Literally every company that got caught having their assistants record conversations turned around and said the victims were informed and consented through the terms of use agreement.