Tech Roundup: Google Ads Transparency, Twitter Secret VIP List & More

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

• Meta offers Facebook and Instagram users in the European Union the ability to opt out of sharing first-party data used to serve highly personalised ads on its platforms, marking a big change to its ads-driven business model; requires that users submit a form to exclude themselves from data collection starting April 5, 2023.
• Google launches an Ads Transparency Center, showing all the ads from verified advertisers on its platforms, in the formats, the regions, and the dates they ran.
• Twitter details new API access tiers, Free with 1,500 tweets/month at app level, Basic for US$ 100/month and Enterprise, as it plans to sunset the old APIs; launches its Verified Organizations program, which allows companies to get a verified checkmark for US$ 1,000/month and their affiliates for US$ 50/month each.
• Reddit says, in 2022, it removed 473% more subreddits and permanently suspended 244% more users accounts violating its policy on non-consensual intimate imagery.
• Netflix is reportedly looking to expand its video game service to TV sets for the first time, using phones as controllers; brings its cheaper ad-supported plan to Apple TV after more than four months of delay.
• Google plans to launch extreme heat alerts in Search, including telling users when a heat wave is expected to start and end, and offer tips to stay cool.
• Canva debuts AI-based tools, including Magic Design that makes personalised templates from images and Magic Presentation that creates slideshows from prompts.
• Meta's WhatsApp to let users pick one among 15 duration options, including as short as 1 hour and as long as 1 year, for its disappearing messages; Instagram rolls out collaborative collections that allows users to share their bookmarked posts to others, just like Pinterest; also tests a new text editor experience with added font and background options.
• Amazon begins adding a warning label on products that are frequently returned; allows T-Mobile customers to link their mobile numbers and make or receive hands-free Wi-Fi calls through Alexa-enabled devices like Echo Dot or Echo Show.
• Apple sets June 5-9 for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference to announce off iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS 14, tvOS 17 and watchOS 10.
• Microsoft confirms that it is "exploring placing ads in the chat experience" in the new AI-powered Bing and share the ad revenue with partners whose content contributed to the chat response.
• PhonePe, one of India's largest fintech platforms, calls off plans to acquire Bengaluru-based BNPL (buy now pay later) platform ZestMoney over due diligence concerns.
• Google releases Chrome 112, officially discontinuing support for Chrome apps on desktop and adding option to turn off custom share sheet on Android; begins rolling out podcasts within YouTube Music.
• Music streamer Spotify test new card-style user profiles that lets users establish more of a social identity on the platform.
• Google replaces Google Pay with Wallet in Japan, months after announcing its plans in July 2022. (As it stands, Wallet is the consolidated app for peer-to-peer payments and storing cards and transit passes. In Singapore and the U.S., however, it will exist as two different apps: G Pay (only for P2P payments) and Wallet. It's also worth noting that India has its own standalone Google Pay implementation that's based on the UPI payments system.)
• Twitter reportedly has a secret VIP list of 36 accounts "it monitors and offers increased visibility" in its recommendation algorithm, according to Platformer.
• Google's YouTube updates Total Reach metrics for artists to include fan-uploaded Shorts, as the short-form video generates 50 billion daily views as of December 2022.