Epic Games accuses Samsung and Google of a plan to block rivals’ Tech applications

“Fortnite” video game maker Epic Games on Monday accused Alphabet’s Google and Samsung, the world’s largest maker of Android phones, of conspiring to protect the Google Play Store from competition.

Epic said it would file a lawsuit in a US federal court in California, alleging that a Samsung mobile security feature called Auto Blocker was intended to discourage users from downloading apps from sources other than the Play Store or Samsung Galaxy Store, which the Korean company chose to put on the back burner.

Samsung and Google are violating US antitrust law by limiting consumer choice and preventing competition that would make apps cheaper, says US company Epic, backed by China’s Tencent.

“This is about unfair competition by misleading users into thinking that a competitor’s products are inferior to the company’s products themselves,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told reporters.

“Google pretends to ensure user security by stating that applications should not be installed from unknown sources. Well, Google knows what Fortnite is because it has distributed it in the past.”

Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Samsung said it plans to “strongly dispute Epic Game’s baseless claims.”

“Features integrated into Samsung devices are designed in line with Samsung’s core principles of security, privacy and user control, and we remain fully committed to protecting users’ personal information,” Samsung said in a statement, adding that users have the option to opt-out Automatic locking at any time.

Epic says Samsung’s Auto Blocker feature is designed to mitigate the impact of Epic’s US ruling against Google in December 2023, which is expected to force the company to make it easier to obtain apps from other sources.

Epic said it would also raise its competition concerns with regulators in the European Union, which have long scrutinized Google’s business practices.

Epic has previously confronted Google and Apple over policies charging up to 30% commission on app store payments. After being banned for almost four years, it was made available again on iPhones in the European Union and globally on Google Android devices last month.

In late 2023, Samsung introduced auto-blocking on its smartphones as an optional feature to protect users from downloading apps that may contain malware. Epic says that in July, Samsung made auto-blocking the default setting and intentionally made it difficult to turn off or bypass.

In 2020, Cary, North Carolina-based Epic Games sued Google, claiming it was stifling competition by controlling app distribution and payments.

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