It was the week that saw Google buy its way into the hardware business, while Apple was sued in South Korea and India’s government made plans to revoke over 80 licenses.

 

By far the biggest story of the week – if not the year – was Google’s $12.5 billion (€8.7 billion) acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

 

Not unexpectedly, everyone’s got an opinion on what it means for Google and the broader handset industry. Overall, it means shoring up Google’s patent portfolio and a chance for the company to defrag the Android ecosystem. And while questions remain over what it means for other handset makers licensing Android, several of them have tentatively welcomed the deal.

 

Google also made headlines in the privacy debate this week as the UK’s information commissioner said he was seeking further improvements to Google’s privacy policies despite the firm meeting targets set in the wake of the payload data gathering scandal involving Google’s Street View.

 

Apple’s own privacy issues escalated this week in the form of a class-action lawsuit filed against it in South Korea.

 

The suit, filed on behalf of 27,000 iPhone users, claims Apple collected their location data without their consent. Apple already faces similar suits in the US following revelations that iPhones and iPads were collecting location data and storing them in unencrypted files – all without the user’s knowledge or consent.

 

It was also the week where the Indian government sought legal opinions over whether it can cancel up to 83 regional telecom licenses issued between 2006 and 2008 for not meeting rollout obligations.

 

Regulator Trai has been pushing for a decision on license cancellations since last year, but doing so could create a legal minefield for the DoT, reported LiveMint.