Epic games sues Google and Samsung for unfair app store market manipulation

Epic Games is no stranger to lawsuits - the org has been involved in more lawsuits than most other companies, and while it came out on top sometimes, the lawsuits were shot down on a couple of other occasions as well. One of the most notable cases was Epic Games v. Apple (2020), where Epic challenged Apple's App Store policies, claiming they were anti-competitive. The court ruled that Apple was not a monopolist under federal or state antitrust laws, but did find that Apple's anti-steering provisions violated California’s Unfair Competition Law, resulting in a partial win for Epic. However, Epic largely lost this case, as most of their claims were dismissed​.

This time, it's going after two tech giants - Google and Samsung, alleging that both companies are coordinating to block competition in app distribution on Samsung devices. The focus of the case is Samsung’s Auto Blocker feature, introduced in 2023, which prevents users from installing apps from third-party sources by default, requiring a 21-step process to bypass the restriction.

Epic claims that Auto Blocker was implemented to protect Google's monopoly on app distribution and violates a previous court ruling against Google. The lawsuit argues that this feature strengthens Google's dominance by making its Play Store the only easily accessible option for app downloads on Samsung devices, stifling competition.

Via this lawsuit, Epic is seeking to have Samsung remove Auto Blocker as a default setting, to ensure that the court’s decision in Epic v. Google is upheld, which should prevent further anti-competitive practices. The company has won once against Google in the US court over Play Store's billing monopoly - we'll have to wait to see if the company can do it again. 

Read the complete statement (and the 21 steps to install Flow on Samsung devices) by Epic Games here; the full exhibit is available here.