I think it's unlikely to be an isolated incident, 20 years from now we'll be reading stories about the CCP listening to every zoom call in the world for years. (Just the same as the CIA did with Crypto AG[1])
They were routing all calls such that the CCP could listen to them. [2]
They lied about calls being End-To-End encrypted. [3]
Zoom was founded by a Chinese national and all of their development is done in China. [4]
I'm willing to bet that the events described here will not be a mortal blow to Zoom, whether the event is isolated or only semi-isolated. To make it concrete, their market cap will still be above $10B on Jan 1 2022. I'll put up to $20 on it, to a non-religious charity of your choice. If you want to take the other side of that bet let me know.
The question I'm most interested in is the one where the individual at the top of the thread suggested this would be a mortal blow to Zoom. It won't. Nit picking about exactly how isolated this is does not change how few of Zoom's customers are or will ever be affected.
If it's a single executive, and the executive is a rogue, then it is exactly a single rogue employee.
Also, although it's beside the point from the perspective of whether what I said is true, I read the complaint. It's not clear if this guy was an executive executive, or an account "executive" (i.e. a low-level administrator). I'm inclined to believe the latter based on the actions he is alleged to have taken.
> Prosecutors said the China-based executive, Xinjiang Jin, worked as Zoom’s primary liaison with Chinese law enforcement and intelligence services, sharing user information and terminating video calls at the Chinese government’s request.
This role does not sound like an "executive" in the sense I think of it. It sounds like an individual contributor role, and not one that sets company policy either.
People answering the phone in call centers often have the official job title "Customer Service Executive" in companies (just search google for jobs). Just saying.
It's highly doubtful that this are just the actions of a single rogue actor.
The CCP requires that all eventually companies have CCP members embedded in the company as an instrument of control.
Irrespective of the Zoom executives disposition/views - they're going to be under immense pressure for a host of related things.
"The party’s efforts to place itself inside private companies have been, according to its own figures, very successful. One recent survey by the Central Organisation Department, the party’s personnel body, found that 68% of China’s private companies had party bodies by 2016, and 70% of foreign enterprises. Although these figures sound high, they don’t match the targets the party has set for itself. In Xi’s old stamping ground of Zhejiang, for example, officials set a target in August 2018 to have cells inside 95% of private businesses. There was a need, the survey said, to retain the revolutionary spirit inside the companies as their ownership was handed on to the next generation." [1]
