Source: AFP
“Fortnite” maker Epic Games is suing tech giants Google and Samsung, it said Monday, accusing them of colluding to block competition on Samsung devices.
CEO Tim Sweeney said his company filed the lawsuit in federal court in California, the same jurisdiction where the company won a years-long legal battle with Google in 2023.
He said he would also fight authorities in Europe and Asia if necessary, amid his long-running battle to force Apple and Google to open up their smartphones to other app stores.
“This is a big global battle, which is ultimately about the right of consumers to have all the benefits of competition and to freely choose who they want to do business with,” Sweeney told reporters.
The latest lawsuit focuses on Samsung’s Auto Blocker feature.
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Epic claims this feature was implemented in coordination with Google to undermine a recent US court ruling against Google’s App Store practices.
Following that decision, Epic launched its own app store in August, which allows users to bypass the Google-run store and offer content directly to smartphone users.
Epic claims that Auto Blocker secretly blocks the new app store making it harder to install apps from sources other than the Google Play Store and Samsung Galaxy Store.
Samsung in July changed Auto Blocker from an “opt-in” feature to the default setting, forcing users to navigate a 21-step process to download apps from third-party stores or the web.
In a statement, Samsung said it plans to “vigorously dispute” what it called Epic Games’ “baseless claims.”
“The features built into our devices are designed around Samsung’s core principles of security, privacy and user control, and we remain fully committed to safeguarding users’ personal data,” a spokesperson added.
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‘Dignified’
A Google spokesman said the lawsuit was “meritless,” adding that Android device makers like Samsung “are free to take their own steps to keep their users safe.”
But Epic argues that Auto Blocker entrenches the Google Play Store monopoly and violates the jury’s verdict in Epic’s previous court victory against Google.
In that case, a jury found that Google’s app store practices, including agreements with phone manufacturers, were illegal.
“Allowing this concerted, illegal, anticompetitive transaction harms developers and consumers and undermines both the jury’s verdict and regulatory and legislative progress around the world,” Epic said.
Epic, the company behind the wildly popular video game “Fortnite,” is asking the court to ban what it calls anti-competitive behavior and order Samsung to remove Auto Blocker as a default setting on its devices.
As part of Epic’s ongoing battles with major tech companies over app store policies and fees, the company has also sued Apple in the past, where it mostly lost.
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The new lawsuit comes at a time of increasing scrutiny of big tech companies’ market power by regulators and lawmakers around the world, with new laws passed in Europe, Japan and South Korea that limit how the giants can they can do business.
Source: AFP
