SAN JOSE, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – Plaintiffs lawyers are hoping to punish Zoom for its new popularity, the company says as it defends itself in federal court against security claims.
Several class actions were filed against the company as it gained customers during the coronavirus pandemic this year and were consolidated in a California federal court in a multidistrict litigation proceeding.
On Sept. 14, Zoom filed a motion to dismiss the consolidated amended complaint.
“In an effort to capitalize on Zoom’s explosive growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, Plaintiffs seek to hold Zoom liable on behalf of a nationwide class under a scattershot array of loosely related factual and legal theories, largely drawn from sensationalist news reports,” the motion says.
“Facing skyrocketing growth in use, Zoom has worked tirelessly since the pandemic’s onset to keep its services operational and secure, while developing and deploying extensive privacy and security enhancements to address new challenges caused by the massive uptick in non-corporate usage.”
Leading the pursuit of the allegations will be Tina Wolfson of Ahdoot & Wolfson and Mark Molumphy of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, both in California. They were appointed co-lead counsel in a multidistrict litigation proceeding in San Jose federal court.
Judge Lucy Koh granted their motions June 30 after receiving applications from nine lawyers to serve those roles.
Lawsuits alleged negligence and violation of laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act. They said Zoom shared the user's personal information, including the type of device and software the user has as well as their network carrier and location, with third parties such as Facebook.
The lawsuits also claim Zoom misrepresented its encryption protocols and failed to prevent unwanted users from crashing meetings (called “Zoombombing”).
But the plaintiffs don’t allege they were harmed by the sharing of any data, Zoom says, nor do they allege they ever relied upon any specific Zoom representations about encryption.
As for Zoombombings, the company is immunized from liability by the Communications Decency Act, it says.
“Plaintiffs acknowledge that these actors are not associated with Zoom or its services,” the motion says.
“Finally, Plaintiffs contort press articles and Zoom’s Privacy Policy to allege that Zoom engages in ‘unauthorized interception and use of video sessions, chats and transcripts,’ speculating that Zoom ‘may’ use this content to train ‘chat-bots’ – allegations that have no factual support in the sources cited by Plaintiffs.”