After months of growth, Zoom has opted to go with an enterprise-only mode in China, barring new individual users from signing up for a free account on the video conferencing platform.

As per the new policies which came into effect from May 1, only enterprise users or Individuals who’ve upgraded to paid accounts are able to host meetings. While existing free users will be able to attend the meetings, no fresh signups are allowed.

According to the local Zoom website in China, the platform will only allow enterprise users with valid proof of business registration and corporate banking accounts to purchase its services in the country. 

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Zoom enterprise only

Reports suggest that the decision to bar individual users from signing-up was taken to stay compliant with the Chinese regulatory requirements.

According to some experts, the decision could also be inspired by the number of free users using the application for free video calls as well as the media reports around calls and to avoid data getting routed from Chinese servers.

The recent move could also be linked to the ongoing tensions between the US and China. 

Zoom had experienced a meteoric rise in its user base due to the ongoing coronavirus-led global lockdown which resulted in users signing up for the free video calling facilities to stay connected with their families. 

The company, however, was soon embroiled in multiple controversies around security, zoombombing, snooping calls not being end to end encrypted and more before being banned in various countries.

Later while on the course of correction, the company announced various measures to ensure users security and even hired experts to improve the security standards. 

The acquisition of security company Keybase was aimed at ensuring end-to-end encryption of all the calls. During the same time, Zoom quietly “corrected” the number of users on its official blog which were bloated initially.

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Via: Nikkei