Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, has filed a lawsuit against Korean tech giant Samsung today (Sept. 30).
The company alleges that one of Samsung’s security features, Auto Blocker, violates US antitrust law. Laws like these exist to promote competition between businesses.
Why is Epic Games taking Samsung to court?
Auto Blocker is a security tool which is switched on by default but can be turned off. It protects users by preventing them from downloading apps from unauthorized sources.
Epic Games says this deters users from downloading apps from sources that are not the Google Play store or the Samsung Galaxy store.
Unsurprisingly, Epic Games has its own game store app. When Auto Blocker is enabled, apps cannot be downloaded from it.
“It’s about unfair competition by misleading users into thinking competitors’ products are inferior to the company’s products themselves,” the company’s CEO Tim Sweeney said according to Reuters.
“Google is pretending to keep the user safe saying you’re not allowed to install apps from unknown sources. Well, Google knows what Fortnite is as they have distributed it in the past.”
Samsung said in a statement that these were “baseless claims”. It remains “fully committed to safeguarding users’ personal data” and will “vigorously contest” Epic Games.
This is far from Epic Games’ first time in court, however. In late 2023, it won its case against Google after the jury found that the Play Store had an illegal monopoly over Android apps and was stifling competition.
It also feuded with Apple earlier this year when the company blocked the Epic Games Store from its own app store. Apple finally gave in in July.
On the opposite side of the courtroom, Epic Games is now in hot water alongside other game companies. They are accused of tricking users into spending money.
Feature image credit: Epic Games
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