TECH NEWS – The company, led by Tim Sweeney, doesn’t like the South Korean company’s technology, which appeared on its smartphones and other devices in 2023.

Samsung and Google could now go to court over the Auto Blocker feature that Epic Games has filed a lawsuit over, a feature that allows you to automatically block third-party apps that Samsung introduced in 2023 to prevent apps from the non-Google Play Store or Samsung Galaxy Store from being installed. Initially, this was optional, but it was announced in July that it will soon be the default setting on devices.

The Epic Games Store launched on mobile about a month ago, and now Epic has filed a lawsuit in California against Samsung and Google. The Sweeneys say that Auto Blocker is anti-competitive and unfair. Epic is not only seeking a jury trial in the case, but also monetary and injunctive relief. It alleges that the feature forces users to go through a cumbersome 21-step process to download any third-party app (such as from Epic’s own store), which includes multiple warnings and various prompts. Epic Games also claims that the existing download steps for third-party applications are already complicated. This expansion would only further reduce competition and create a monopoly for Google and Samsung’s own app store.

Auto Blocker classifies the Epic Games Store as software from an unknown source, which the company claims is ironic since Fortnite was previously part of the Galaxy Store. In its complaint, the company alleges that Samsung treats the two stores differently and uses an unfair classification process that makes it difficult to compete in the mobile app market. In filing the lawsuit, the company wrote: “As an app developer, Epic is harmed by Samsung’s untrue statements that its apps are unknown and unsafe. These false statements not only damage Epic’s reputation, but also result in identifiable instances of users refraining from installing Epic apps, resulting in lost profits that would have resulted from purchases made by those users.”

Epic previously won a lawsuit against Google in December, claiming that Google Play (as a mandatory payment system for all transactions) was anti-competitive. The jury unanimously found in favor of the Epic Games Store’s claim, and now the company is arguing that Samsung and Google’s collaboration on the auto-block feature undermines even the previous case’s verdict.

Samsung has yet to comment. And this is not the first time Epic and Google have gone to court…

Source: WCCFTech