Epic has today announced major new litigation as it takes its battle against existing app store monopolies to former ally Samsung, as well as continued rival Google, in a fresh front that may see a return to the courtroom. One key feature found on Samsung phones forms the cornerstone of Epic Games' new complaint: a setting known as Auto Blocker that users must turn off to install Epic Games and Fortnite . "The instigator of this complaint is one and only one thing: that Samsung recently introduced a piece of technology it calls Auto Blocker, which blocks side-loading of software - it blocks the installation of software from stores that aren't its own, or the Google Play store," Epic boss Tim Sweeney said in a press briefing ahead of the litigation being made public.
Epic suggests Auto Blocker is an attempt at collusion between Google and Samsung, where the former hands off what Epic deems to be anti-competitive practices to a major partner, ahead of firmer rules being enforced on Google itself. In practice, Auto Blocker works similarly to the existing "scare screens" and additional technical steps on other phones that make downloading software outside of official sources - such as the Google Play and iPhone App Store - more difficult. Users attempting to download the Epic Game Store, for example, are warned in technical and scary language that they are risking the safety of their device, and required to go disable Auto Blocker from within their phone's settings via a fairly l.
