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Epic Games Alleges Google And Samsung Colluded To Restrict App Store Competitors

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Epic Games Alleges Google And Samsung Colluded To Restrict App Store Competitors

Topline

Video game company Epic Games filed a federal lawsuit Monday accusing Google and Samsung of colluding to harm third-party app stores on smartphones running Google’s Android operating system, nearly a year after the “Fortnite” game maker won an antitrust suit against the search giant.

Key Facts

Epic’s suit, filed before the Northern District of California federal court, is focused on Samsung’s Auto Blocker feature, which the phone maker describes as a security feature that protects a user’s device by “preventing the installation of applications from unauthorized sources and blocking malicious activity.”

When enabled, the Auto Blocker service only allows apps to be installed from authorized sources—namely Google’s Play Store and Samsung’s Galaxy Store—and Epic alleges that Samsung does not offer any pathway for third-party stores to become “authorized sources.”

Epic’s suit notes Auto Blocker originally launched as an opt-in feature but in July Samsung announced that it would be switched on by default—impacting the newly launched Epic Games Store on Android.

The video game company claims that, with this change, users will now have to go through an “onerous 21-step process to download an app outside of the Google Play Store or the Samsung Galaxy Store.”

Epic alleges that the move to switch Auto Blocker on by default was a “coordinated action” by Google and Samsung to preemptively undermine the remedies the federal court is expected to issue soon in the antitrust case the game maker won against Google last year.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told the Wall Street Journal that around 50% of users trying to install Epic Games Store on Android give up because of all “the friction introduced” by Google and Samsung.

A Samsung spokesperson told Forbes it plans to “vigorously contest Epic Game’s baseless claims” and said the features integrated into its devices are “designed in accordance with Samsung’s core principles of security, privacy, and user control.”

Big Number

71%. That is Samsung’s share of “premium Android devices” (phones that cost more than $600) sold in the U.S., according to Epic. Additionally, Samsung has a 57% share of all Android phones sold in the U.S.

Contra

While Epic claims that a user faces a “21-step process” to download an app from outside the Google Play Store or Galaxy Store on a device with Auto Blocker, the company’s own support page has a four-step process on “How to disable Auto Blocker.”

Key Background

Epic has taken on both Google and Apple over the past few years, alleging that the companies abused their dominant position in the smartphone market to charge excessive fees to app makers. Both Google and Apple take a 30% cut of all profits generated by app makers on their platforms. While the judge in the Apple case rejected Epic’s antitrust claim against Apple, a jury ruled in favor of the Fornite-maker in the Google case. The judge overseeing the Google case is yet to issue an order on the remedies Google will have to submit to.

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