SAN FRANCISCO — When U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered Oracle Corp., Google Inc. and their counsel to disclose financial relationships with any bloggers, journalists and academics who’ve written about their smartphone megatrial, it set off a raft of questions among technology lawyers:

Does Alsup have the power to do that? What prompted him to issue this order on his own motion? And which authors are likely to be exposed as “shills” for the technology titans?