Epic suing Google and Samsung over Auto Blocker's barrier to other app stores
Fortnite firm says partnership between two companies undermines its win in jury trial last year
Epic Games is filing another legal complaint against Google as well as Samsung, claiming the latter's Auto Blocker is a barrier to alternative app stores and clashes with a jury verdict last year.
Auto Blocker is a feature Samsung introduced to its mobile devices in October 2023, and allows users to automatically prevent the installation of any apps that weren't distributed by the Google Play Store or Samsung Galaxy Store.
The feature was originally opt-in, enabling those who wished to sideload apps to continue doing so, but in July 2024 Samsung revealed it would be switched on as default. In doing so, all Samsung devices automatically prevent the user from installing alternative app stores, such as the Epic Games Store that launched on mobile last month.
In its complaint filed with the Northern District of California, Epic Games is calling on the court to prevent Samsung from enabling Auto Blocker by default and to prohibit Samsung and Google's "anti-competitive and unfair conduct."
The company is also demanding a jury trial to judge this dispute, and requesting monetary relief and damages, as well as legal costs.
Epic Games claims that with Auto Blocker enabled, users must go through "an exceptionally onerous 21-step process" to download an external app such as its own games store. By comparison, it already takes 12 steps on Android (by Epic's estimations) due to multiple warnings about software from unknown sources.
Samsung's Auto Blocker also refers to the Epic Games Store as software from an "unknown" source, with Epic arguing this is in contrast to the fact that Samsung has previously listed some of its games on the Galaxy Store.
"As an app developer, Epic is harmed by Samsung’s untruthful statements that its apps are unknown and unsafe," the company wrote in its complaint. "These false statements not only harm Epic’s reputation but lead to identifiable instances of users abandoning the installation of Epic apps, resulting in the lost profits that would have resulted from purchases made by those users."
Epic claims that Auto Blocker "cements the Google Play Store as the only viable way to get apps on Samsung devices, blocking every other store from competing on a level playing field."
Epic also asserts that the partnership between Samsung and Google undermines the jury's verdict in its previous antitrust case against Google, which it won back in December.
The jury voted unanimously that Google was showing anticompetitive behaviour in multiple ways, including mandating that developers use Play store's payment system for all transactions and allegedly offering financial incentives for developers to stay on that store.
"The jury’s decision was unanimous and clear; Google’s agreements with OEMs to block competition are illegal," Epic Games said in a statement. "This applies not only to Google, but to the device manufacturers that collude with them. We will take all necessary steps to ensure this decision is fully upheld."