Zoom quietly admits its claim of having 300 million daily active users was misleading

The increasingly popular video conferencing service, Zoom, is rolling back prior claims that it has 300 million daily active users.

According to a report from The Verge, the company has quietly altered a press release containing the figure posted to its blog forum earlier this month.

The post stated incorrectly that Zoom that has ‘more than 300 million daily users’ and ‘more than 300 million people around the world are using Zoom during this challenging time.’

As noted by The Verge, Zoom has since gone back and edited the press release to state that there are ‘300 million daily Zoom meeting participants.’

The difference between meeting participants and daily active users, as noted by The Verge, is significant.

While daily meeting participants can be counted multiple times – for instance, people that have multiple Zoom meetings per day – daily active users are only counted once even if they have multiple video calls.

Zoom has still not provided numbers on its daily active users.

The admission of its misstated daily active users marks yet another stumble for Zoom as it enjoys unprecedented popularity.

Other miscues have been related to security, including revelations in March that Zoom was discovered sharing sensitive data with Facebook, like the time the Zoom app was opened, phone carrier, device specs, location and other analytic data that can be used to target ads.  

Other flaws discovered in Zoom also compromise the privacy of one’s webcam, allowing hackers to tap into video and audio feeds and another issue that allows hackers to steal passwords on Windows devices.

As a result, Zoom has introduced several new features meant to help correct the string of flaws that have cast doubt on its safety.

Among the new features is the ability to lock meetings and prevent other users from joining, the ability to remove participants in the meeting and greater control over screen sharing.