First Houseparty, now Zoom. Both of the video chat sensations have come under heavy fire this week, but Zoom has attracted the fiercest criticism, after a series of highly concerning data- and privacy-related issues emerged.
The company has apologised, saying that its rapid rise to prominence “far [surpassed] what we expected”, and that it will spend the next 90 days fixing Zoom’s “biggest trust, safety, and privacy issues” and preparing a transparency report.
For a summary of the Zoom issues that have surfaced recently, check out this article.
They’re steps in the right direction, but if you’d rather use a different service for the time being, here’s how to delete Zoom.
How to delete a free Zoom account
Zoom offers four different types of account, but the one that most people have been using for video calls with friends and family is the Basic − free − account, which allows you to chat to three or more people for up to 40 minutes at a time.
Here’s how to delete it:
- Sign in to your Zoom account on desktop
- Go to Account Management > Account Profile > Terminate My Account
- Click ‘Yes’ to confirm
- You’ll be redirected to the Zoom home page, and a message will confirm that your account has been permanently deleted
Related: How to group FaceTime on Mac
“As of the end of December last year, the maximum number of daily meeting participants, both free and paid, conducted on Zoom was approximately 10 million. In March this year, we reached more than 200 million daily meeting participants, both free and paid,” Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan wrote in a blog post on April 1.
“For the past several weeks, supporting this influx of users has been a tremendous undertaking and our sole focus. We have strived to provide you with uninterrupted service and the same user-friendly experience that has made Zoom the video-conferencing platform of choice for enterprises around the world, while also ensuring platform safety, privacy, and security.
“However, we recognize that we have fallen short of the community’s – and our own – privacy and security expectations. For that, I am deeply sorry.”
Related: How to delete Houseparty
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
