Epic Games has taken legal action once again, this time targeting tech giants Google and Samsung. Epic Games has filed a lawsuit accusing both companies of engaging in anticompetitive and illegal practices through features that restrict app competition on Android devices. The lawsuit follows Epic’s previous legal battle with Apple and Google over app store monopolies, and now it involves Samsung as well. While the case against Apple ended in Apple’s favor, Epic had a significant win in its antitrust lawsuit against Google in 2023. However, the latest lawsuit claims that Google has found a way to bypass that legal victory.
Samsung Auto Blocker: A new barrier to App Store competition?
At the center of this new legal conflict is Samsung’s Auto Blocker feature. This feature is turned on by default on its devices. The Auto Blocker warns users against installing apps from any source other than the Google Play Store or Samsung’s Galaxy Store. According to Epic, disabling this feature involves a 21-step process, making it a highly inconvenient task for most users. Additionally, Epic claims this discourages people from downloading apps from alternative app stores or directly from developers. As such, this severely limits competition in the app distribution space. This Samsung Auto Blocker was the main reason behind the Epic Games lawsuit.
Epic argues that this feature effectively shifts the responsibility for app store monopolies from Google to Samsung. By creating a system where other app stores are hard to access, Google and Samsung maintain their dominance over app distribution on Android devices, despite Epic’s previous court victory against Google. Epic’s lawsuit contends that this setup not only harms developers by limiting their ability to reach users but also restricts consumers’ options.
Misleading sideloading warning: Scaring users?
The Epic Games lawsuit further focuses on the warning messages users see when attempting to sideload apps from outside the Google Play Store or Samsung Galaxy Store. Epic claims these warnings are both misleading and alarmist. For instance, the warning may describe apps as “unknown,” which is inaccurate in the case of widely recognized apps like Fortnite. The language used in these warnings could easily scare users unfamiliar with sideloading, causing them to abandon the process entirely.
Key Points:
- Samsung Auto Blocker restricts app installation from thidy-party sources and is enabled by default.
- Turning off Auto Blocker requires 21 steps, which Epic claims limits competition.
- Epic also criticizes the misleading warning that appear when users attempt to sideload apps from other sources.
With this lawsuit, Epic Games hopes the courts will recognize the latest restrictions on fair competition in the mobile app ecosystem. By challenging these practices, the company aims to open up the Android platform, providing developers with more opportunities and consumers with greater freedom of choice. This legal battle is the latest in Epic’s ongoing fight against what it sees as monopolistic behavior in the tech industry.
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