The fix fits a familiar pattern for Zoom — in July 2019 it also shipped a repair only after backlash over initially refusing to fix the Mac camera hijack flaw. The difference this time is scale: with usage surging during lockdowns, each disclosure lands on a much larger audience, and Zoom's follow-on 5.0 security-and-privacy update shows the company treating these fixes as a rolling program rather than one-offs.
First-order effects
iOS users stop having device data sent to Facebook through Zoom's app, and Zoom's disclosure gap closes without waiting on a policy rewrite — the SDK removal makes the policy question moot for iOS.
Second-order effects
Every app developer embedding the Facebook SDK now faces the same audit question Zoom did: what leaves the app, and does the privacy policy say so? Vendors whose disclosures lag their SDKs become the next targets of the same reporting playbook.
Third-order effects
If SDK-driven data flows keep getting exposed post-hoc, app platforms face pressure to police third-party SDKs at review time rather than leaving disclosure to developers' privacy policies — shifting accountability from the app maker alone to the SDK supplier and the platform gatekeeper.
The trend: Mobile apps are being forced to treat embedded SDKs as a first-class privacy liability, with removal under press pressure preceding formal policy and platform-level governance.
What's astounding about this privacy policy is just how transparent Zoom is about the nastiness of adtech. That data provided by Zoom to Google will be combined with other sources, and this stew of plundered data is then sold to the highest bidder for as targeting.
Zoom has stopped the data leakage to Facebook. That's good. But their privacy policy is still a complete trash fire that belittles privacy legislation, and grants themselves the right to do exactly what they were just caught doing. https://www.vice.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Zoom Removes Code That Sends Data to Facebook. The change comes after Motherboard found the Zoom iOS app was sending analytics information to Facebook when users opened the app. https://www.vice.com/... via @vice
@josephfcox Shadow profile created with fingerprint, if fingerprinting could not uniquely identify an FB user who has never logged into Zoom via FBID? Or bucketing to set of profiles if fingerprinting was close but not unique? Enquiring minds want to know. Cc: @robleathern in cas…
Zoom announced today that it's removing @Facebook's SDK from it's app. When we were building the @HiHello app we consciously chose NOT to use the Facebook SDK, even though it would give better conversion tracking. Wish more app devs would boycott FB. https://blog.zoom.us/...
What is with everyone's sudden Zoom obsession? It's basically malware. Why not use something that already has all of your data, like Google Hangouts? https://www.vice.com/...
Very common considering the # of iOS apps which have the Facebook SDK installed. Not to mention the apps that use Google's SDKs. Reminder for developers: a library added to your app has access to everything your app can access, even if you never call it. https://www.vice.com/...
Just because you're “pivoting to online” doesn't mean you have to throw your students' privacy rights out the window, you know https://www.vice.com/...
“The Zoom app notifies Facebook when the user opens the app, details on the user's device.., [their] time zone and city, which phone carrier.., and a unique advertiser identifier.. which companies can use to target a user with advertisements”, WTF 😭 https://www.vice.com/...
Zoom sends analytics data to Facebook, even if Zoom users don't have a Facebook account, Motherboard reports. “users may not be aware it is happening, nor understand that when they use one product, they may be providing data to another service altogether” https://www.vice.com/...