Technologies
Zoom privacy risks: The video chat app could be sharing more information than you think
Zoom makes video chatting with colleagues easy, but you might be giving away more than you bargained for.

The Zoom video meeting and chat app skyrocketed in popularity as millions of people looked for new ways to work, study and socialize amid the coronavirus pandemic. With the option to customize your background and newer features such as Immersive View and a vanishing pen tool, it’s easy to see why Zoom’s popularity isn’t dwindling even as COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots roll out and offices become hybrid workplaces. But with all that popularity, comes privacy risks.
From built-in attention-tracking features (which have since been disabled) to exploitable software bugs and issues with «Zoom-bombing» (where uninvited attendees break into and disrupt meetings) — Zoom’s security practices have drawn scrutiny from users worldwide. New York’s Attorney General Letitia James sent Zoom a letter outlining privacy vulnerability concerns in March 2020. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also cautioned users working from home about the software’s onboard privacy features.
Read more: 20 Zoom video chat tips, tricks and hidden features
Privacy experts previously expressed concerns about Zoom in 2019, when the video-conferencing software experienced both a webcam hacking scandal, and a bug that allowed snooping users to potentially join video meetings they hadn’t been invited to, if those meetings were not protected with a password.
The issues exacerbated by widespread adoption at the start of the pandemic were just the latest chapter in the software’s rocky security history, and prompted Zoom CEO Eric Yuan to respond to concerns in April 2020, freezing feature updates to address security issues over a 90-day update rollout. Though Zoom has since added security features like end-to-end encryption, there are still a few things you should watch out for to keep your chats as private as possible.
Here are some of the privacy vulnerabilities in Zoom that you should watch out for.
Zoom’s cloud recording feature might share meeting video with people outside the call
For paid subscribers, Zoom’s cloud recording feature can either be a life-saver or a catastrophic faux pas waiting to happen. If the feature is enabled on the account, a host can record the meeting along with its text transcription and a text file of any active chats in that meeting, and save it to the cloud where it can later be accessed by other authorized users at your company, including people who may have never attended the meeting in question. Yikes.
As Mashable’s Jack Morse put it, «What that suggests, but doesn’t clarify, is that for non-webinar/standard meetings, your person-to-person chat messages would be later sent to your boss after a call recorded to the cloud.»
Zoom does allow a narrowing of the audience here, however. Administrators can limit the recording’s accessibility to only certain preapproved IP addresses, even if the recording has already been shared. Participants can also see when a meeting is being recorded.
Read more: The best VPN services for 2021
Zoom even shared information with Facebook
By now, you’re used to hearing it from the privacy-minded: Don’t use Facebook to log in to other sites and software unless you want Facebook to have data on what you’re doing. Fair enough. But what to do when Zoom gets caught sending some of your analytics data to Facebook — whether or not you even have a Facebook account?
An analysis by Vice’s Motherboard found the iOS version of the Zoom app doing exactly that. Courtesy of Facebook’s Graph API, Zoom was telling Facebook whenever you opened the Zoom app, what phone or device you were using, and your phone carrier, location and a unique advertising identifier. Motherboard also reported that Zoom had updated its iOS app so the app would stop sending certain data to Facebook.
In a March 2020 blog post, Zoom addressed the issue, noting «our customers’ privacy is incredibly important to us, and therefore we decided to remove the Facebook SDK in our iOS client and have reconfigured the feature so that users will still be able to log in with Facebook via their browser.»
As late as March 2020, Zoom’s privacy policy contained some breezy language about its relationship to third-party data crunchers, which gives one reason to question where else — and to what extent — that data was being shared or sold that we didn’t know about.
«Zoom does use certain standard advertising tools which require Personal Data (think, for example, Google Ads and Google Analytics). We use these tools to help us improve your advertising experience (such as serving advertisements on our behalf across the Internet, serving personalized ads on our website, and providing analytics services),» the policy said at the time. «Sharing Personal Data with the third-party provider while using these tools may fall within the extremely broad definition of the ‘sale’ of Personal Data under certain state laws because those companies might use Personal Data for their own business purposes, as well as Zoom’s purposes.»
But at the end of March, Zoom updated its privacy policy. In a statement following the move, Zoom said that while it wasn’t changing any of its actual practices, it wanted to make its language clearer. Regarding its relationship to third-party data handlers described above, the company drew a line in the sand between its product and its website. «This only pertains to user activity on the zoom.us website. No data regarding user activity on the Zoom platform — including video, audio, and chat content — is ever provided to third parties for advertising purposes,» the company said.
You should probably review your Zoom and device security settings with an eye toward minimizing permissions, and make sure any anti-tracking software on your device is up to date and running.
It may not help, but it can’t hurt.
It’s also important to keep your Zoom app up to date so your privacy is always protected with the latest security patches. Luckily, Zoom recently rolled out a new automatic update feature that makes this process a whole lot more convenient.
For more, check out how to use the sneaky Zoom Escaper tool to get out of your meetings, how to combat Zoom anxiety and Zoom fatigue, and how to make your video meetings a little less weird. And, does Zoom’s free plan have ads now?
Technologies
CNET Daily Tariff Price Tracker: What Prices for 11 Key Products Have Shown About Tariff Impacts
The deadline for the start of Trump’s heaviest tariffs has been delayed a few weeks, but some prices have already begun to react to them.
For the past three months, tariffs have been a hot topic, leaving consumers and businesses alike worried: Will they increase prices and by how much? It’s a question more relevant than ever, as President Donald Trump punts another major deadline down the road, delaying the biggest potential price hikes by another few weeks and letting more uncertainty spread.
Amid those worries, I’ve been tracking prices every day for 11 key products likely to be hit by tariff-induced price increases, and the answer I’ve come to so far is this: Not so much, at least not yet. The winding road of tariff inflation still stretches before us into an uncertain future, so the threat of price hikes continues to cloud the horizon.
To date, I’ve seen two noteworthy price increases, one for the Xbox Series X and the other for a popular budget-friendly 4K TV. Some other products — including Apple’s popular AirPods and printer ink — have gone on sale for brief periods.
CNET Tariff Tracker Index
Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help give you a sense of the overall price changes and fluctuations going on. Further down, you’ll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked. Based on the numbers so far, the average has gone up noticeably since the start of the year, but this has been driven mostly be a big shifts for a few products, as most price are still stable.
We’ll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It’s all in the name of helping you make sense of things, so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET’s guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession.
Methodology
We’re checking prices daily and will update the article and the relevant charts right away to reflect any changes. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled «Now» and showing the current price. For the past months, we’ve gone with what was the most common price for each item in the given month.
In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price-tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple’s official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering of the iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we’ll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause.
The 11 products we’re tracking
Mostly what we’re tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs — along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn’t produced in the US to any significant degree.
The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like printer ink or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists.
- iPhone 16, 128GB
- Duracell AA batteries, 24-pack
- Samsung DU7200 65-inch TV
- Xbox Series X
- Apple AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C case
- HP 962 CMY Printer Ink
- Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank
- Bose TV speaker
- Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush
- Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook, 256GB
- Starbucks 28-ounce ground dark roast coffee
Below, we’ll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting.
iPhone 16
The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes because of its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500.
Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you’ll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. If you, say, buy direct from Apple or Best Buy without a carrier involved, you’ll be charged an extra $30, so in some places, you might see the list price of the standard iPhone 16 listed as $830.
Apple’s been taking a few steps to protect its prices in the face of these tariffs, flying in bulk shipments of product before they took effect and planning to move production for the US market from China to India. A new Reuters report found that a staggering 97% of iPhones imported from the latter country, March through May, were bound for the US. This latter move drew the anger of Trump again, threatening the company with a 25% tariff if they didn’t move production to the US, an idea CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly shot down in the past. This came after Trump gave a tariff exemption to electronic devices including smartphones, so the future of that move seems in doubt now.
Duracell AA batteries
A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you’ll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we’re tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon.
Samsung DU7200 TV
Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if they’re an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET’s pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean company, so it might have some measure of tariff resistance.
After spending most of 2025 hovering around $400, this item has now seen some notable upticks on Amazon, most recently sitting around $450. This could potentially be in reaction to Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs against South Korea this week.
Xbox Series X
Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft’s Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes — the company cited «market conditions» along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that «certain» games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80.
Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US.
AirPods Pro 2
The latest iteration of Apple’s wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales.
HP 962 CMY printer ink
This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around $72 — where it stayed for most of 2025 — to $80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be keeping tabs to see if this is a long-term change or a brief uptick.
This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we’re still tracking that item.
Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank
Anker’s accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET’s lists of the best portable chargers.
Bose TV speaker
Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose.
Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush
They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won’t let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET’s overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025.
This product hasn’t seen its price budge one way or another most of the year, but while Prime Day might have come and gone, there’s still a $10 coupon listed on Amazon right now, letting you save a little bit of money for the time being.
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook
Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump’s tariffs.
Starbucks Ground Coffee (28-ounce bag)
Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity —I’m certainly drinking too much of it these days —and because it’s uniquely susceptible to Trump’s tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth’s equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the «Coffee Belt.»
Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season — little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years.
All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs. While this particular bag of beans from Starbucks hasn’t seen its price budge for most of the year, in recent days it ticked up by less than a dollar on Amazon, which could be a sign of further increases to come.
Other products
As mentioned, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. Here are some things no longer featured above, but that we’re still keeping an eye on:
- Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places — including Amazon — since it released in 2017. Whether that price will be affected by tariffs or the release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X.
- Overture PLA 3D printer filament: This is a popular choice on Amazon for the material needed to run 3D printers. It has held steady around $15 on Amazon all year. This product was replaced above by the HP 962 printer ink.
Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven’t been featured with a graph yet:
- Razer Blade 18 (2025), 5070 Ti edition: The latest revision of Razer’s largest gaming laptop saw a $300 price bump recently, with the base model featured an RTX 5070 Ti graphics card now priced at $3,500 ahead of launch, compared to the $3,200 price announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump’s tariff plans were ramping up in April.
- Asus ROG Ally X: The premium version of Asus’s Steam Deck competitor handheld gaming PC recently saw a price hike from $799 to $899, coinciding with the announcement of the company’s upcoming Xbox-branded Ally handhelds.
Technologies
You Have Less Than 3 Weeks Left Before Microsoft Deletes Your Passwords. Do This Now
If you rely on the Authenticator app to manage your passwords, check out these alternatives before Aug. 1.

The future of Microsoft will see us say goodbye to an all-too-familiar thing of the past — passwords.
After August, Microsoft Authenticator will no longer support passwords at all. If you’re still using the Authenticator app to manage logins, big changes are coming fast. This shift is already in motion: New password creation was disabled in June, and autofill support was cut off in July.
For years, Microsoft Authenticator has been a go-to for managing both multifactor authentication and saved passwords. However, starting next month, it will move to passkeys instead. That means your logins will soon rely more on things like PINs, fingerprint scans or facial recognition: They’re all more secure, faster and harder to steal than a standard password.
Passkeys get rid of the risky password habits practiced by 49% of US adults, like using the same password for multiple accounts or using personal hints, according to a CNET survey. However, those convenient hints can pose a bigger risk to scammers, identity theft and fraud.
If you’re a fan of Authenticator and not sure where to start before the switch, here are other password managers CNET recommends and steps you should take before August.
When will Microsoft Authenticator stop supporting passwords?
Microsoft Authenticator houses your passwords and lets you sign into all your Microsoft accounts using a PIN, facial recognition like Windows Hello, or other biometric data like a fingerprint. Authenticator can be used in other ways, such as verifying you’re logging in if you forgot your password, or using two-factor authentication as an extra layer of security for your accounts. In June, the company stopped letting users add passwords to Authenticator.
Starting this month, you won’t be able to use the autofill password function. And next month, you’ll no longer be able to use saved passwords.
If you still want to use passwords instead of passkeys, you can store them in Microsoft Edge. However, CNET experts recommend adopting passkeys during this transition. «Passkeys use public key cryptography to authenticate users, rather than relying on users themselves creating their own (often weak or reused) passwords to access their online accounts,» Tomaschek said.
Why are passkeys a better alternative to passwords?
So what exactly is a passkey? It’s a credential created by the Fast Identity Online Alliance that uses biometric data or a PIN to verify your identity and access your account. Think about using your fingerprint or Face ID to log into your account. That’s generally safer than using a password that is easy to guess or susceptible to a phishing attack.
«Passwords can be cracked, whereas passkeys need both the public and the locally stored private key to authenticate users, which can help mitigate risks like falling victim to phishing and brute-force or credential-stuffing attacks,» said Attila Tomaschek, CNET’s software senior writer and digital security expert.
Passkeys aren’t stored on servers like passwords. Instead, they’re stored only on your personal device. More conveniently, this takes the guesswork out of remembering your passwords and the need for a password manager.
How to set up a passkey in Microsoft Authenticator
Microsoft said in a May 1 blog post that it will automatically detect the best passkey to set up and make that your default sign-in option. «If you have a password and ‘one-time code’ set up on your account, we’ll prompt you to sign in with your one-time code instead of your password. After you’re signed in, you’ll be prompted to enroll a passkey. Then the next time you sign in, you’ll be prompted to sign in with your passkey,» according to the blog post.
To set up a new passkey, open your Authenticator app on your phone. Tap on your account and select «Set up a passkey.» You’ll be prompted to log in with your existing credentials. After you’re logged in, you can set up the passkey.
Other password manager alternatives
Since Microsoft will get rid of all of your passwords in a few short weeks, you’ll need a new place to store your passwords safely. Tomaschek has a few of the best password manager recommendations after testing and reviewing several.
The top recommendation is Bitwarden for its transparency. It’s open-source and audited annually. From a price perspective, the free plan lets you store infinite passwords across unlimited devices. The free plan also includes features most password managers would charge for, including password sharing and a username and password generator.
Bitwarden’s upgraded plans have other upgraded features that could be worth the cost, too.
Personally, Tomaschek has been using 1Password for a while, and he likes the interface and family plan. Even though it’s second on the list, Tomaschek says it’s just as good as Bitwarden.
Technologies
Xbox Ally Gaming Handheld Price Could Be Higher Than Expected, Leak Suggests
The Microsoft-Asus portable gaming device could price itself right out of the market.

The ROG Xbox Ally handheld gaming device from Asus and Microsoft debuted last month, and there were a lot of questions about the new portable. The big question about price might have been answered by a leak, and it looks like this handheld won’t be cheap.
A Google search screenshot showed a listing for the Xbox Ally and upgraded Ally X at 599 and 899 euros, as first spotted by Spanish gaming site 3DJuegos on Sunday and reported by Insider Gaming. This would put the Xbox Ally at approximately $700 and the Ally X at approximately $1,050.
Microsoft and Asus didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
While this might be the European price, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be the US price. When the Xbox Series X launched back in November 2020, the US price was $499 while the EU price was 499 euros, which would have converted to approximately $590 at the time. It’s common for Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft to keep the same price number across the different common Western currencies such as dollars, euros and British pounds — though the latter two include tax at 20%. (Prices quoted to consumers have to include sales tax, known as VAT, in those regions.)
If we do some back-of-the-napkin math, the euro prices without tax would be 479 and 719 euros respectively. Converting those to US dollars gives $559 and $839. In comparison, Asus’ ROG Ally cost $700 when it was released in 2023. The ROG Ally X came out in 2024 for $800.
There is, however, a big concern with the Xbox Ally and that involves President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Microsoft already increased the Xbox Series console’s prices in May due to tariffs. China has been the main trading partner affected by the tariffs, as most other countries were part of a 90-day pause Trump declared back in April, only days after revealing his plan. That pause is due to come to an end on Aug. 1, and one country that could be affected is Vietnam, where a lot of electronic devices are made.
The Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X could be big competition for the Steam Deck, which currently dominates the handheld market. A flaw in the original ROG Ally and other Windows-based portable devices is that Windows is not optimized for a handheld device, whereas SteamOS is built for the Steam Deck. This means Windows handhelds can come off as laggy when booting up games and sluggish while playing, even though they have better processors and more memory. The Xbox Ally looks to provide an Xbox-like experience by incorporating the console’s UI into the device. An early look at the device suggests the new UI will be a welcome improvement over the standard Windows 11 setup.
Both the Xbox Ally and Ally X are expected to launch later this year, most likely during the holiday period.
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