After Epic Games won the app store monopoly case it filed against Google four years ago, it is now going to court again with a new case. Epic, the developer of the famous game Fortnite, filed a new antitrust lawsuit against both Google and Samsung, claiming that they are collaborating illegally to block third-party application stores.
The lawsuit focuses on Samsung’s “Auto Blocker” feature, which is enabled by default on its new phones. This feature only allows users to install apps from authorized sources from Google and Samsung. Epic claims there is no process for competing stores to be deemed “authorized.”
When Epic filed its first lawsuits against Google and Apple in 2020, it did not yet have its own mobile app store. But now, on August 16, it has launched the Epic Games Store on Android and iPhones in the EU. This was made possible by the EU Digital Markets Act forcing Apple to allow alternative stores. But Epic alleges that Samsung made it harder for new phone users to install competing apps by enabling Auto-Blocker by default a month before it opened the store.
Currently, users must complete a “heavy-handed” 21-step process to install a third-party app store on Samsung phones, Epic claims. This increases the likelihood that users will abandon the process midway. Epic notes that it wants Samsung to either turn Auto-Blocker off by default or create a whitelisting process that will allow trusted apps to bypass this block. However, when an agreement could not be reached with Samsung on this issue, Epic announced that it would take legal steps and shared the draft case with Samsung.
According to Samsung’s support page, users have the option to disable Auto-Blocker during initial setup. So Samsung can argue that the feature wasn’t secret or forcibly activated. However, Epic claims that claims that this feature is used for security purposes are not valid. According to the lawsuit, Autoblocker blocks app installations without assessing the security of any app or resource.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney states that this feature is not designed to prevent malware, but to limit competition. However, Sweeney admits that they do not have any concrete evidence to prove that Samsung and Google are collaborating on this issue. However, he hopes that documents obtained during the litigation process can confirm this claim.
Epic states that it continues its fight against Google and Apple not only for its own interests, but on behalf of all application developers. Sweeney says he doesn’t want to ignore the rights of all developers by negotiating solely on Epic’s exclusive privileges.
Epic Games demands action against Google and Samsung’s strategies
As a result, Epic is demanding with this lawsuit to remove obstacles to third-party app stores and take action against Google and Samsung’s anti-competitive strategies. Epic is also requesting a jury verdict in this new case.
There is no statement yet from Samsung about whether Auto Blocker detects malware or whether it is collaborating with Google on this feature.