UPDATE 1/10/24 9am UK: Today brings fresh condemnation from Google of Epic’s latest legal foray. A statement this morning from Dave Kleidermacher, VP Engineering, Android Security and Privacy, shared with Eurogamer, describes the litigation against Google and Samsung as “dangerous”.
“Epic’s latest lawsuit is a meritless and dangerous move,” Kleidermacher said. “Google did not request that Samsung create their Auto Blocker feature.”
Epic has argued that Samsung’s introduction of a new security feature, Auto Blocker, unfairly restricts competition by dissuading users from downloads made outside of Google and Samsung’s own stores.
“While Android allows sideloading, Google and the security community have warned users for years about the real risks associated with downloading apps directly from the web,” Kleidermacher continued. “In the US, federal agencies, NGOs and fintech associations have guidance underscoring this issue. Governments around the world have requested additional solutions to help further protect users from the fraud, theft and abuse from sideloaded apps that are causing real harm to people’s lives. That’s why Google offers its own safety features such as Google Play Protect, which checks for harmful apps on a user’s device, regardless of where the app was downloaded. Android device makers are free to innovate and design additional safety features for their devices.
“To make this about access to a game is deliberately misleading; this is about user safety. And Epic’s lawsuit puts their corporate interests above user protections.”
UPDATE 30/9/24 6pm UK: Google has now responded to Epic’s new lawsuit, launched today against the Android phone maker, and also Samsung.
“This is a meritless lawsuit,” a Google spokesperson told Eurogamer. “Android device makers are free to take their own steps to keep their users safe and secure.”
The maker of Fortnite has also claimed its introduction is part of a joint response by Samsung and Google to the launch of Epic Game Store on mobile. Our full story lies below.
ORIGINAL STORY 30/9/24 12pm UK: 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 laborious process to continue.
Already, Android’s sequence of alerts and extra steps dissuades around 50 percent of users from going on to complete the download, Sweeney said. Samsung’s Auto Blocker steps add further “friction” on top of that, he continued.
“For your security, your phone currently isn’t allowed to install unknown apps from this source,” one alert message reads.
“Well, Google knows what Fortnite is, they’ve distributed it in the past,” Sweeney noted. “Google knows what Epic Game Store is, they’ve dealt with us. So this warning in itself is misleading.”
Epic is unhappy with both Google and Samsung here, as users must allow Google’s Chrome browser to install software (such as the Epic Game Store) and then deal with Samsung’s Auto Blocker itself.
“[This is] a new Samsung warning that came in after we won Epic vs. Google,” Sweeney said. “A feature Samsung turned on by default for all [new] users which caught us off-guard.”
Sweeney described Samsung’s own alerts during the installation process also as “misleading”, as once again the generic warning message describes Epic Game Store as an “unknown app”.
“Samsung knows what Fortnite is,” he continued. “Fortnite has been presented in numerous of their stage presentations and streams to the public, they’ve been marketing it in a partnership where we’ve spent tens of millions of dollars together. Samsung knows Epic Game Store. And yet they’re calling it an ‘unknown app’.”