Google’s premium video conferencing product meet is now free for everyone. The COVID-19 pandemic has had everyone working or learning from home, and video conferencing facilities have been effective in ensuring the meetings happen.
Meet offers video conferencing solutions to enterprise and education customers via G-Suite. The product will roll out in weeks to everyone with a Google account. Users will be able to create free meetings for up to 100 people up to any amount of time. However, after September 30th, it may restrict the meeting length to 60 minutes.
“In recent months, we’ve accelerated the release of top-requested features to make it even more helpful. Starting in early May, anyone with an email address can sign up for Meet and enjoy many of the same features available to our business and education users, such as simple scheduling and screen sharing, real-time captions, and layouts that adapt to your preference, including an expanded tiled view,” according to Javier Soltero, Vice President &GM, G Suite.
Meet operates on a secure foundation to keep users safe, data secure, and information private, including between patients and caregivers, which makes it impossible for scammers to join any meetings. Also, no one can enter the meetings unless they are logged in. This also ensures meetings are better controlled by their hosts to eliminate the chances of zoombombing
Google will also introduce other safety measures: people not explicitly added to a meeting via a calendar invite will be automatically entered into a green room when they try to join a meeting, and only be let in when approved by the host. The free version will also not offer landline dial-in numbers for meetings.
Those safety-focused restrictions are Google’s way of differentiating its Meet product from Zoom, which has had several security issues over the past few months.