Epic Games says Auto Blocker is illegal

Epic Games’ saga against big companies continues, and this time the focus is on the company’s newest application. Now, the Fortnite developer is suing Google and Samsung, alleging that the tech giants were conspiring to make it difficult to install third-party apps.

This is the second time that Epic has filed a lawsuit against Google, remembering that the first ended in December last year with a victory on the part of the Fortnite owner. This time the big focus is precisely on Samsung, mainly because of the “Auto Blocker” function that has already started to come as standard on the company’s new devices. Understand.

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What is Auto Blocker?

Before understanding the process, it is important to first understand what “Auto Blocker” is. It is a feature present in Samsung’s new cell phones and is already activated by default.

The main function of this feature is precisely to prevent the installation of third-party applications that do not come from “authorized sources” by the company. However, the “authorized sources” are currently only the Google app stores, which is the Play Store, and Samsung itself.

That’s why Epic is focusing on this feature, as it ends up blocking the installation of third-party stores and at the same time doesn’t even show a clear process for these stores to be classified as “authorized”.

Furthermore, it also ends up driving many users away from the process. Both for fear of it actually being something dangerous and for not providing clearer details on how the user disables this feature. Even with a universal Samsung search, it is more difficult to find a step-by-step guide for this. All of these factors, in Epic’s view, discourage users and limit competition.

Launch of the Epic Games Store and the confrontation with Google and Samsung

Epic is even more interested in this segment as the company has launched its own mobile app store, the Epic Games Storein August for Android devices globally and for iPhones in the European Union, where European law now requires Apple to allow alternative app stores.

Now the company claims that, shortly before the launch of its store, Samsung decided to make Auto Blocker active by default on its devices, which makes it very difficult to install applications from competing stores on new devices.

During a test carried out on a Samsung phone, it was possible to notice that it was not possible to install the Epic Games application while AutoBlocker was activated. Furthermore, the blocking pop-up showing the message that the app cannot be installed did not provide any information on how to disable the feature.

The impact on competition and the accusation of monopoly

Epic Games’ claim is that Auto Blocker is not intended to protect users from malware, as Samsung claims, but rather to block competition. This is because, according to the process, this function does not perform any type of security analysis or specific evaluation of the applications before blocking the installation. It only allows those that come from the Play Store and Samsung, which could be a mechanism to prevent any other third-party app store from being installed on the device.

At the moment, Epic still does not have any concrete proof that Google and Samsung were in fact conspiring to create this anti-competitive barrier, but the company hopes that the legal discovery process will bring more information, just as happened in the past case against Google .

Furthermore, Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic, made it clear that the fight is not only for the sake of Epic, but also on behalf of all app developers who can have their store secure. He also mentioned that he asked Samsung, in particular, to disable the Auto Blocker feature by default or at least make a clearer and fairer process so that it could allow trusted applications to be authorized and installed.

However, there was no agreement on this issue, which made Epic decide to take legal action.

Downloads from Epic Games Stores are far from the ambitious target

So far only two new Samsung phones have been launched on the market with the Auto Blocker feature as standard, Epic feels that it was enough to prevent more people from installing it from its store.

To date, the Epic Games Store already has more than 10 million mobile installations. A good amount, but it is still a long way from the company’s goal, which is 100 million downloads by the end of this year. There is still not enough data to show how much Auto Blocker is actually impacting these numbers.

Epic also expects the final outcome of the case Epic vs. Google influence the future of the app store market. If the court rules in favor of Epic, the Google Play Store could be forced to include the Epic Games Store and other platforms within its store, as well as allow these third-party stores access to the entire Google Play app catalog.

However, Epic is preparing to face possible appeals from Google and remains vigilant regarding other companies that may adopt similar practices as Samsung. According to Sweeney, to date, Samsung is the only company that has implemented this type of blocking, and Epic is paying attention to ensure that others do not follow the same path.

Fonte: The Verge