April 29, 2020 - 16:15 AMT
Google's Meet video conferencing tool is now free for everyone

Google is opening up its Google Meet video conferencing service to anybody who wants to use it, instead of just offering it to enterprise and education customers via G Suite, The Verge reveals.

The company says anybody with a Google account will now be able to create free meetings of up to 100 people that can last any amount of time — though after September 30th it may restrict meeting length to 60 minutes.

That Google account requirement is a hard one, however. People won’t be able to just click a link and join a meeting — they’ll need to be logged in. That is so meetings can be better controlled by their hosts, hopefully eliminating the possibility 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.