The promotion of healthy competition and the removal of barriers to prevent it from happening seems to be in full swing as Google has lately been facing immense pressure for its search engine illegal monopoly, and the anti-trust lawsuit is being actively pursued. Now Google and Samsung are under hot waters for their Auto Blocker feature as Epic Games has recently filed a legal complaint against them for their feature to be blocking competition by making third-party app installation arduous.
Epic Games is pursuing legal action against Samsung and Google for posing significant barriers to competition
Samsung incorporated the Auto Blocker feature into its smartphones and other devices in 2023. This feature was rolled out to prevent users from installing apps that were not part of the Google Play Store or the Samsung Galaxy Store. While it initially came out as an opt-in, in July 2024, it was announced that the option would become the default setting soon. The default setting would automatically stop the installation of apps from other app stores.
Epic Games Store was launched for mobile last month, and stumbling upon this barrier, it filed a legal complaint against Samsung and Google in California and called the companies on its Auto Blocker feature being applied by default as anti-competitive and and suggested it to be an unfair conduct. The company not only wants a jury trial for the case but also is seeking monetary relief and injunctive relief.
Epic Games, in its legal claim, suggests that the Auto Blocker option makes users go through a 21-step cumbersome process to download any third-party apps like Epic’s own store that include multiple warnings and various prompts. Epic further claims that the existing steps for downloading external apps are already complicated, and this extension would only limit the competition more and create a monopoly for Google and Samsung’s own app stores.
The Auto Blocker feature places Epic Games Store as software from an unknown source, which the company claims is ironic as its ‘Fortnite’ previously has been part of the Galaxy Store. In presenting its case, Epic Games says that Samsung treats the two stores differently and has an unfair classification process, making it harder to compete in the mobile app market. When filing its complaint, the company wrote:
As an app developer, Epic is harmed by Samsung’s untruthful statements that its apps are unknown and unsafe. 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 Games already won the case in December against Google and claimed that Google Play, being the required payment system for all transactions, was anti-competitive. The jury unanimously voted in favor of Epic Games Store’s claim and now the company argues that the collaboration of Samsung and Google on the Auto Block feature undermines the verdict of even the previous case.
Samsung has yet to comment on the current legal action against it, but it looks like the pursuit of healthy competition is ongoing, and companies would have to shape up their practices accordingly to avoid being part of such complications.