Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jan 2021 Open Access

Zoombombing Your Toddler: User Experience and the Communication of Zoom’s Privacy Crisis

Sarah Young Erasmus University Rotterdam

Abstract

In spring 2020, not only did the teleconferencing platform Zoom experience an onslaught of new users who were now social distancing due to the COVID-19 crisis, but it also faced its own crisis due to the privacy of its product. For those working in technical and professional communication, the Zoom example illustrates not only a way to communicate in an emergency but also a way that privacy can cause a crisis in the first place. Drawing from literature on crisis communication and the experiences users described in the Zoom CEO’s blog post, the author concludes that while Zoom did indeed have technical issues that contributed to its privacy crisis, users also experienced its technology in unexpected ways, and the company underestimated the privacy expectations of its new users. Zoom’s privacy crisis ultimately provides a useful discussion of why it is increasingly important for companies to incorporate privacy by design and to be frank about their privacy practices with a public who has a growing interest in, and dissatisfaction with, corporate privacy practices.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
2021-01-01
DOI
10.1177/1050651920959201
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Topics
professional writing digital rhetoric
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (4)

  1. Morris (2026)
    Introduction to Special Issue: Technical Communication In/Against Security Logics
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Hope et al. (2025)
    Investigating Cookie Banners and Mitigating Complacent Clicking With Informed-C…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. Cheung et al. (2022)
    Power, Freedom, and Privacy on a Discipline-and-Control Facebook, and the Impli…
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  4. Barth et al. (2021)
    Privacy Rating: A User-Centered Approach for Visualizing Data Handling Practice…
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication

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CrossRef global citation count: 15 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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