Google Meet will soon get a new feature to protect against Zoom-bombing

The coronavirus pandemic has seen a rise of video calling apps and Zoom managed to take an early lead leaving others like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams behind in terms of features. However, Zoom has been plagued with vulnerabilities which forced companies to ban the app.

Now, Google is working on making sure that the problems faced by Zoom users are not repeated with Google Meet. The company is working on a new feature that will protect users from Zoom-bombing, which involves a random person joining the call with the sole intention of disruptions for the host. According to G Suite Updates site, Google will not allow anonymous users to join calls to protect users from Zoom-bombing. The feature will be implemented on G Suite for Education users to protect teachers and students from Zoom-bombing.

To increase the privacy of education meetings in Google Meet, anonymous users (users not signed into a Google account) can no longer join meetings organized by anyone with a G Suite for Education or G Suite Enterprise for Education license. This prevents participants from sharing a link publicly to encourage anonymous users to request access.

– Google

Earlier this week, Google started rolling out the new feature to Google Meet users. It is a phased rollout so it may take up to 15 days for the feature to get implemented. The feature will be enabled by default and “G Suite for Education admins can request to have this feature disabled to allow anonymous participants to join Google Meet calls by contacting G Suite support to request an exception.” There’s no word on if or when the feature will be available for all the Google Meet users.