Fortnite creator Epic Games just sued Google and Meta for anti-competitive behavior. The company says that both firms discouraged Android users from installing games and apps located outside of their Play Store.
The issue on discussion is the Auto Blocker feature that’s created to stop Galaxy devices from downloading those apps that arise from unauthorized sources. These are enabled through default means and as per Samsung, the Auto Blocker is there to protect users.
The South Korean tech giant argued how the Auto Blocker stopped any Galaxy device from downloading apps from unauthorized sources. Samsung did confirm how it also prevents sideloading for this reason.
Whenever Galaxy devices come across a platform from unknown sources, they get alerts that signal how a download was prevented. Meanwhile, the feature can also go on overriding the Galaxy device setup while the firm even provides options to remove it temporarily, if the user wishes.
The feature was first rolled out by Samsung last year in October and is said to be a coordinated effort that hinders competition in terms of platform distribution.
But Epic Games is not using that justification as a good enough excuse because they state the goal is to undermine the legal action that it has taken against Google in the high-profile lawsuit. This is where the jury agreed that Google was behaving like a monopoly with its Play Store and that all of its rules were anti-competitive in nature.
The CEO for Epic Games mentioned during a press briefing today that there was no evidence that both these companies colluded with their Auto Blocker offering. He does hope to find more evidence on this front while the discovery process gets documented. Similarly, he did not send any request to ask tech giant Samsung to make Epic Games an authorized source in terms of games.
Epic Games did conclude that this legal action that it was taking was on behalf of several stakeholders which included developers and not just the company itself. He says that if their goal was to attain special benefits, they would have just settled the matter in the past with tech giants Apple, Google, and more. But that’s not the case and the last thing is to sell out developers.
This is not the first time that we’ve seen Epic Games file a lawsuit against the tech giant for the sake of safeguarding developers. However, experts do feel that at the end of the day, the firm is also keeping a lookout for its best interests.
The company aims to have the court make Samsung get rid of the Auto Blocker feature soon, especially since it’s a default setting. How successful they actually turn out to be in this regard, only time can tell.
For now, we’re going to keep an eye out on the progress of this lawsuit.
Image: DIW-Aigen
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