Tech Roundup: Instagram NFT Test, TikTok Friends Tab & More

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

• U.K. government says that large tech companies such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft will have to abide by new competition rules in the country or risk facing huge fines.
• Spotify plans to shut down Stations, the service's lightweight listening app first launched in 2018 to offer easy access to curated playlists, on May 16; says users "can still enjoy Spotify by logging in with your Stations account."
• Google Play bans "downloading of paid apps and updates to paid apps" in Russia over sanctions, after halting purchases of paid apps and subscriptions in March.
• ByteDance-owned TikTok ditches the "Discover" tab in favour of a new "Friends" tab in the bottom navigation menu of the app, letting lets users "find and enjoy content from people you're connected with" on the platform.
• Tinder's parent Match Group sues Google, alleging the company is illegally monopolising its power with a requirement that developers use Google's billing system for Android apps in the Play Store; comes as the search giant announced in March that it will start testing a way for Android developers to use their own payment systems as Android and iOS face increasing scrutiny over in-app billing.
• Controversial facial recognition surveillance company Clearview AI agrees to permanently ban most private companies from using its service for running afoul of Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) and building its business on facial recognition data scraped from social networks without user consent.
• Meta to start letting some U.S. creators test digital collectibles and NFTs on Instagram this week, with "similar functionality" coming soon to Facebook; to discontinue Background Location, Location History, Nearby Friends and Weather Alerts features from Facebook on May 31.
• Apple faces criticism for holding back support for WebXR standard on iOS, which makes it possible to launch AR experiences directly from a web browser. (It's also worth noting that it applies to other third-party browsers for iPhone as well since Apple mandates all browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave and others, to use Safari's WebKit rendering engine to build iOS versions of their browsers.)