Because users have attendees leaking meetings and asking Zoom if there is any way to identify the leaker. This in turn informs Zoom that the ability to identify leakers is a desired feature for users. This might make the product seem more "secure" and "safe".

Mmmmm. If I ever got a feature request in that vein I'd seriously reconsider business with that client.

Happy to get bits from A to B. Go make doing shady things easier/safer on your own time.

Since when is protecting privacy shady? There are a lot of confidential relationships that previously relied on meetings behind closed doors that now rely on teleconferencing: therapists, healthcare, courts, lawyers, students, etc. Those who are exposing their private information in confidence absolutely deserve to be protected.

Which of these would have the motivation and resources to track down a leak through such a watermark?

Any of them, given the tools exist to do so. Also, the organization that is attempting to protect from the leak might not be the same organization that would be recovering from one.

Doing shady things? Is this a rephrasing of the "nothing to hide" argument?

It’s a strange and peculiar concept to most people. Even if you knew how you might approach removing such a watermark, you wouldn’t know how sophisticated it is, so you wouldn’t be able to know whether you’d succeeded or not. I’d guess most zoom users wouldn’t even know where to start with removing such a watermark.

I personally doubt it’s particularly sophisticated at all. But the fear of getting caught it creates would be enough to deter a significant portion of potential leakers.

Why is any watermarking necessary at all? Because DLP (which includes anti-leaking control) is a huge concern for most businesses, and working from home makes the problem even more serious. Zoom is trying very hard to position themselves in this market (and doing a rather good job of it), so in that context the feature makes perfect sense.

You’d want to do it to find out who is leaking your meeting.

ok I'll bite, what's leaking a meeting? Like, recording the video and distributing it?

I must be too far detached from large companies to know/care about this.

Example: Quarterly results for a publicly traded company before they are published. If those are leaked before the official time / date, whoever gets it first has an unfair advantage. They may get charged with insider trading, and the leaker as well.

>Quarterly results for a publicly traded company before they are published. If those are leaked before the official time / date, whoever gets it first has an unfair advantage. They may get charged with insider trading, and the leaker as well.

If this kind of thing is now done on a Zoom call, how is it any different than prior to Zoom being in the meeting, hearing the information and passing it on via another means, like a phone call? What value would leaking the call as in your example have?

I'm struggling a bit to think of any examples of private information being leaked that have really changed because of Zoom. Trusted employees are able to leak private corporate information, always have been.

A leaked Zoom meeting is a lot harder to deny. If a reporter gets a call saying “The CEO of BigCorp said a racial slur in the cafeteria” it’s hard to prove. A leaked Zoom meeting is more concrete evidence.

Have you ever had a meeting where sensitive information was shared?

Zoom meetings are like those, but with the sharing of sensitive information transmitted over the Internet. Someone could easily record their screen and audio and capture said sensitive information for subsequent sharing -- or "leaking"-- with someone else.

> Like, recording the video and distributing it?

Yeah, exactly.

Because companies want some protection from private meetings being leaked. Right? I don’t see the mystery here.