The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear Google's bid to escape Oracle Corp's multi-billion dollar lawsuit accusing Google of infringing software copyrights to build the Android operating system that runs most of the world's smartphones. Google has appealed a lower court ruling reviving the suit in which Oracle has sought at least $8 billion in damages.

The several dozen attorneys general investigating advertising practices at Alphabet Inc's Google are planning to expand their antitrust probe into the unit's flagship Android business, CNBC reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The investigation, led by the Texas attorney general's office, is known to have focused on Google's search and digital advertising businesses since it began in September.

Information Technology Industry (ITI) Council, a US-based global lobby body for technology companies, said that India's mandate on data localization could prove detrimental to tech companies in more than one way, and also opposed the government's bid to force social media apps such as WhatsApp to allow traceability of the origin of certain messages.