Tech Roundup: Slack IPO Plans, Spotify's Acquisition Spree & More

[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]

1. Google reportedly begins censoring search results in Russia to meet local censorship requirements, months after running into hot water over its proposed plans to re-enter China with a censored search engine; scrubs results related to pornography, corruption, political extremism, unlicensed gambling, drugs, pirated media, and other banned topics maintained by Roskomnadzor, the Russian media and communications bureau.
2. Apple starts storing user data for Russian citizens and other users in the area on servers based in Russia (includes name, delivery address, email address and phone number) in order to comply with a local law which went into effect in 2015 that mandates companies operating in the country to store data within its boundaries; follows similar attempts by Apple to migrate Chinese users' information to a local operator named GCBD based out of the country.
3. India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology introduces new draft regulations that mandates apps of Chinese origin which run on user-generated content and have more than 5 million users in the country (TikTok, Like, Helo and more) to establish a local presence, and appoint a senior official to be accountable for any legal concerns that might arise, reports The Financial Times (paywall).
4. Apple releases iOS 12.1.4 software update to fix Group FaceTime security vulnerability that allowed users to eavesdrop incoming audio on the other end even before the call is accepted.
5. New report from TechCrunch finds popular iPhone apps like Abercrombie & Fitch, Hotels.com, Air Canada, Hollister, Expedia, and Singapore Airlines to be employing the services of customer experience analytics firm Glassbox to record users' screens (potentially also reading sensitive information) within their apps in an attempt to improve their products without seeking explicit user consent; Apple responds by asking offending apps to disclose their data collection practice or else risk facing removal from the App Store. (The issue here is to do more with transparency than the actual screen recording itself, which is not against Apple's App Store guidelines.)
6. Apple removes "Do Not Track" option in Safari with iOS 12.2 (currently in beta) after it becomes evident that most websites don't honour the setting; adds a new "Motion & Orientation Access" toggle that allows users to prevent sites from being able to access a device's accelerometer and gyroscope in order to track the device's motion and orientation.
• The development could possibly be in response to research that came out last year which discovered that websites loaded on mobile browsers were able to access an array of device sensors without any notifications or permissions whatsoever.
• It may be noted that Facebook was also granted a patent titled "Systems and Methods for Utilizing Wireless Communications to Suggest Connections for a User," last year that describes a method which employs the phone's wireless signals, accelerometer and gyroscope to detect proximity between devices, and therefore people, to suggest new friends.
7. Facebook updates its ad transparency policy to show users who uploaded their contact info for purposes of ad targeting; clicking Facebook's "Why am I seeing this?" button in the drop-down menu of the ad will reveal the brand that paid for the ad, the biographical details they used to target the ad and if they'd uploaded the contact info, and if so, when it was uploaded, if it was by the brand or one of their agency/developer partners and when access was shared between partners.
8. Facebook-owned Instagram adds new sensitivity screens to images (will be blurred out by default unless the user explicitly viewer opts in) with an aim to stop teens from being exposed to inappropriate content relating to suicide and self harm; images that depict self-harm to also no longer appear in search, hashtag or account recommendations.
9. Alphabet's expenses for the period October-December (Q4) rises 26 percent  to US$ 31 billion, outpacing revenue growth of 21 percent for the same period, as the digital conglomerate continues to spend heavily on traffic acquisition (i.e. the fees it pays Apple and Mozilla to be the default search engine on Safari and Firefox, among others, which came in at US$ 7.44 billion), hiring and other bets (Verily, Waymo).
10. Google releases a new Password Checkup Chrome extension that alerts users when they use an exact combination of username and password for any website that has previously been exposed as part of any third-party data breach; bans 29 beauty camera apps from the Play Store that evaded Play Protect protections and forwarded users to phishing websites to steal their information, or uploaded pictures taken on the phones to a private server.
11. Music streaming service Spotify, which boasts of 207 million monthly active users and 96 million paid subscribers (as of December 2018), gets serious about podcasts with acquisition of Gimlet Media and Anchor, a startup that offers tools for podcast creation, publishing, and monetisation, spending a collective US$ 500 million to purchase the two companies as part of its new "audio-first" strategy; revises its terms of service (effective March 1) to ban tools that circumvent non-skippable ads on its free-tier, in addition to banning any accounts using ad blockers to disable ads. (It's not immediately clear if the company will give any prior warning.)
12. Google hired gig economy workers (no different from Amazon Mechanical Turk, if you think about it) to train its artificial intelligence programs to help it distinguish different objects for its controversial drone project with the U.S. Department of Defence (aka Project Maven), reports The Intercept.
13. Mozilla follows the footsteps of Chrome, Opera and Microsoft Edge to disable add-ons by default in Firefox private browsing mode due to their inherent privacy risks; to mute auto-playing videos by default.
14. Fact-checking website Snopes quits partnership with Facebook after "we felt that the Facebook fact check partnership wasn't working well for us as an organisation"; cites disagreements over lack of financial benefits for the journalists involved.
15. Alphabet's health subsidiary Verily to open a non-profit Opioid treatment facility called OneFifteen in Ohio in a steps towards dealing with the opioid crisis in the U.S.; to create a "tech-focused rehab campus" that collects information and analytics in hopes of improving outcomes for patients.
16. Popular chat app Viber rolls out a new user interface for its apps; brings new features like hidden number chats (message other people without having to exchange phone numbers) and group calls.
17. Google's Nest Guard, the circular connected keypad that powers Nest's home security solution, Nest Secure, adds support for Google Assistant (thanks to a pre-installed microphone that was hitherto undisclosed); says it's leveraging TensorFlow, the company's open source machine learning framework, to rid Gmail of 100 million additional spam emails every day.
18. Popular enterprise messaging app Slack, which is currently worth US$ 7 billion, confidentially files to go public later this year; updates its Security page to highlight that it's HIPAA compliant, suggesting it may be working with hospitals and health-care providers to bring the chat platform to the sector.
19. Chinese handset maker Xiaomi enters into smart-shoes with Mi Men's Sports Shoes 2 (INR 2,499 or US$ 35.05) using 5-in-1 uni-moulding technology that it claims to make it shock absorbent, slip resistant, and durable.
20. Facebook adds Unsend feature to Messenger that allows users to delete a message within 10 minutes of sending it either just for the sender, or for everyone in the conversation; buys computer vision and visual search startup GrokStyle and makes its first acquisition in the blockchain space with Chainspace, an up-and-coming startup centred around the creation of smart contracts to facilitate payments via blockchain technology.
21. Instagram begins suggesting IGTV videos in home feed after the video platform (introduced last year) fails to gain traction; hides the list of users who have viewed Stories after 24 hours.
22. Snapchat's daily active user count stabilises at 186 million for the period ending December, even as the company fights it out with rivals Instagram and TikTok to stay relevant; rival Twitter shares its daily active user count for the first time since going public, saying "average mDAU in Q4 were 126 million, up 9% year-over-year, driven by a combination of organic growth, marketing, and product improvements." (mDAU = monetisable Daily Active Users)
23. Opera, which discontinued its dedicated VPN app Opera VPN last April, updates its browser apps for Android and iOS with built-in VPN support. (The desktop clients have had the feature since September 2016.)
24. Scroll, a subscription news startup that aims to deliver ad-free reading experience, acquires twitter-based news aggregator app Nuzzel.
25. Apple advising its Genius Bar technicians to "push iPhone upgrades to consumers with out-of-warranty devices" as part of its latest ploy to promote its new iPhone models following less than anticipated sales, according to Bloomberg.
26. Social networking giant Facebook turns 15 years old with a humongous total of 2.3 billion active users on the platform; also celebrates 10 years of "Like" button.