Zoom Seeks National Direction on Privacy and Backs CDA S. 230
Privacy rules for companies like Zoom are “becoming clearer,” though work remains, said Josh Kallmer, head-global public policy. “Privacy is an incredibly complex subject, and there are some very complex pieces of the law out there around the world and a very interesting debate happening” in the U.S., he said on C-SPAN's The Communicators. The show was to have been telecast over this weekend.
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Zoom, which didn’t have a Washington, D.C., office until March, is looking for national direction, Kallmer said. “Members of Congress tend to be very open-minded,” though they don’t always agree, he said. Privacy and security are critical, he said: “Our whole company depends on the faith of our users.” Kallmer was Information Technology Industry Council executive vice president-policy before joining Zoom.
Communications Decency Act Section 230 “is a bedrock of a free and open internet, and it has been for about a generation … and should be preserved,” Kallmer said. He expects “some really tough” discussions next year on 230: “We’re eager to be a part of those conversations.”
The platform transformed overnight, from 10 million daily customers last December, mostly focused on business, to more than 300 million in April, Kallmer said. “We understood that we had the opportunity to connect not just companies, but people, families, faith institutions, schools, healthcare.” Congress has been reluctant to use Zoom, but that's changing, he said: “We’re making important progress and feeling very good about our conversations with the Hill and its ability to use our platform.” Kallmer acknowledged Zoom has lots of competitors but said that made the company better: “We look at what our peers are doing, and I think we learn lessons.”
His company also faced regulatory scrutiny. In November, it agreed to a settlement with the FTC on allegations it deceived users about encryption services, circumvented browser security features and exposed consumers to third-party surveillance (see 2011090052). Kallmer said he hasn’t had much interaction with the FCC but plans outreach in 2021. Zoom supports efforts to build 5G in more places, he said. “One of the things that the pandemic has revealed is some of the ways access to internet service is so unevenly distributed.”
In September, such platforms made headlines when they declined to carry a webinar by Leila Khaled, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Zoom is "investing a ton" in developing policies on content moderation and event hosting, he said. "We are committed to a free exchange of thoughts and ideas, but we do it according to a set of rules that reflect our values." Judgments are difficult to make, he said.