Tech Roundup: Facebook Marketplace, Spotify Paid Podcasts & More

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

• China's ministry of state security orders social groups, enterprises and public entities to step up efforts to safeguard against efforts by "overseas espionage and intelligence agencies and hostile forces" to steal secrets as part of new counter-espionage regulations.
• The European Union to reportedly charge Apple with anticompetitive behavior over concerns that the rules it sets for developers on its App Store break E.U. law; the development comes following a 2019 complaint from Spotify alleging that the company enforces ‌App Store‌ rules that "purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience," accusing the company of "acting as both a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers"; Russian watchdog, the Federal Antimonopoly Service, fines Apple US$ 12 million for alleged abuse of its dominance in the mobile apps market, stating the distribution of apps through its iOS operating system gave its own products a competitive advantage.
• Facebook's Instagram to gain new features to help creators monetise their content, including a marketplace to match brands with creators, and creator shops, which would allow creators to sell goods to Instagram users directly through their profiles on the social network, as Facebook adjusts to new privacy changes in Apple's iOS ecosystem by baking more e-commerce features into its apps, thus effectively delivering personalised ads to users.
• It's worth noting that under App Tracking Transparency, companies that own multiple apps can track users across those different apps — for example, Facebook can use data it gathers from Instagram to target ads in its flagship app. The idea is that if Facebook can sell more products through its own apps, it's not so dependent on cross-site user tracking.
• Interest-based social network Pinterest hits 478 million monthly active users, as Microsoft Teams collaborative messaging platform reaches 145 million daily active users, up from 75 million daily active users year-over-year, LinkedIn tops US$ 3 billion in ad revenue in the last year, outpacing Snap and Pinterest, and Google Cloud has sales of $4.047B in Q1, up 46% from the previous year.

• Music streaming service Spotify officially launches paid podcast subscriptions for creators in the U.S., a week after Apple debuted a similar paid subscription offering, as it reports 356 million daily active users and 158 million paid subscribers, up 21% year-over-year.
• Sony reports Q4 PlayStation operating profit of US$ 3.14 billion, on sales of 7.8 million PlayStation 5 consoles as of March 31, and 47.6M PS Plus subscribers, up 14.7% YoY
• Messaging service Telegram, which surpassed 500 million monthly active users earlier this January, to add group video calls next month, including support for web-based videoconferencing, screen sharing, encryption, and noise-cancellation.
• Apple says it now has 660 million paid subscriptions across its platform, as Services revenue for second fiscal quarter of 2021 hits a record US$ 16.9 billion, up from US$ 13.3 billion a year ago; Wearables category sets quarterly revenue record of US$ 7.8 billion, with iPhone sales of US$ 47.9 billion, up from US$ 29 billion, Mac sales of US$ 9.1 billion, up from US$ 5.4 billion last year, and iPad sales of US$ 7.8 billion, up from US$ 4.4 billion last year.
• Facebook e-commerce-focussed Marketplace hits one billion users, with one million businesses using "click to WhatsApp" ads on Facebook and Instagram, allowing users to contact businesses directly via WhatsApp, as the social media platform grows its user base to 1.88 billion daily active users (and 2.85 billion monthly active users); says it's working "to mitigate the impact of the iOS 14.5 update" and that "there are challenges coming to personalized advertising and we are doing a huge amount of work to prepare."
• Facebook has repeatedly criticised Apple over its new requirement for iPhone app developers to ask users' permission to track and collect certain data for targeted ads, saying the change would harm its business and hurt small companies that rely on personalised advertising.
• Google begins rolling out an update for Assistant that allows users to train the virtual assistant how to pronounce and recognise uncommon names (limited to English for now).
• Financial services company JPMorgan partners with Singapore's Temasek and DBS Group Holdings to create a blockchain-based platform for payments, trade, and foreign exchange settlement.