Four years after Epic sued Google for operating an illegal app store monopoly — a case it won last December — Epic is suing again. The Fortnite game developer has submitted an application second antitrust lawsuit against Google, and now Samsung, accusing them of illegally conspiring to undermine third-party app stores.

The lawsuit centers on Samsung’s ‘Auto Blocker’ feature, which is now enabled by default on new Samsung phones. When enabled, it will automatically prevent users from installing apps unless they come from ‘authorized sources’, namely the Google and Samsung app stores. Epic claims there is no process by which a rival store can be “authorized.”

When Epic filed the original lawsuits against Google and Apple in August 2020, it did not yet have its own mobile app store. Now it is: on August 16, it launched the Epic Games Store on Android worldwide and on iPhones in the European Union, where the EU Digital Markets Act forced Apple to allow alternative stores.

But a month before it could launch its own store, Epic claims, Samsung suddenly decided to turn Auto Blocker on more or less by default, making it harder for new phone buyers to install competing apps on their own.

Epic claims that it now requires “an exceptionally tedious 21-step process” to download a third-party app store onto a Samsung phone, making it much more likely that users will give up somewhere along the way.

While “21 steps” seems like overkill to me (Epic’s own website claims that disabling Auto Blocker only takes four steps!), I can see the company’s point when I try it on my own Samsung phone. Not only is Auto Blocker preventing me from installing the new Epic Games Store, the “can’t install app” popup no longer tells me how to disable Auto Blocker.

When I search for ‘turn off auto-blocking’ in the universal search bar of my Samsung phone, there are no relevant search results; when I search for ‘auto blocker’ I have to tap through several additional screens to disable it. One of them asks me if I’m really sure and claims, “Auto Blocker keeps your phone safe by blocking threats and other suspicious activities.”

Today, Epic claims that the promise of safety is completely bogus: “Auto Blocker does not conduct an assessment of the safety or security of a specific resource or app before blocking an installation,” the legal complaint reads.

“The thing isn’t designed to protect against malware, which would be a perfectly legitimate purpose,” said Epic CEO Tim Sweeney. “The thing is designed to prevent competition.”

However, in a roundtable with journalists, Sweeney admitted that he has no evidence yet that Google and Samsung have colluded. He hopes this will come to light during the legal discovery process, as so many embarrassing things have Epic vs. Google. He also admits that he didn’t actually ask Samsung if the company would freely make the Epic Games Store an “authorized source.”

As with Sweeney’s previous lawsuits, he claims this is because he is fighting on behalf of all app developers, not just Epic.

‘If we had fought Epic vs. Apple And Epic vs. Google Based solely on the fact that Epic was granted special privileges, settlement discussions with Apple and Google might have been fruitful,” Sweeney said. “But if we did that, we would sell out all the developers.”

Instead, he says, he has personally asked Samsung to change Auto Blocker to disable it by default, or to create “a fair whitelisting process” that would automatically let fair apps through Samsung’s new barrier. When Samsung and Epic couldn’t agree on “the basics” of that whitelisting process, he says Epic threatened legal action and even shared a draft of today’s legal complaint with Samsung.

Samsung does not want to confirm or deny this The edge whether Auto Blocker actually scans an app for threats or suspicious activity. It would not confirm or deny whether it worked with Google on the feature.

Samsung points out that it doesn’t enable Auto Blocker secretly or silently, though; it lets users choose. “The default setting for Auto Blocker is set to On in the phone’s initial setup wizard, but you can also change this setting to Off during the initial setup,” according to the company’s support page.

Here’s Samsung’s full statement, provided by spokesperson Chris Langlois:

Contrary to Epic Game’s claims, Samsung actively promotes competition in the market, increases consumer choice and conducts its business fairly.

The features integrated into our devices are designed in accordance with Samsung’s core principles of security, privacy and user control, and we remain fully committed to protecting users’ personal data. Users have the choice to disable Auto Blocker at any time.

We intend to vigorously dispute Epic Game’s unsubstantiated claims.

Google also wouldn’t confirm or deny whether it worked with Samsung on the feature. “This is a worthless lawsuit. Android device manufacturers are free to take their own steps to keep their users safe,” read a statement via Google spokesperson Dan Jackson.

It is not yet clear whether Epic has suffered damage from Auto Blocker. Only two new Samsung phones have shipped since Samsung enabled this standard. Although Sweeney claims that Google’s previous attempts to create friction with third-party apps (“Unknown Sources”) caused half of the people who clicked “download” to give up halfway through, he admits that he’s not yet over has data showing that Samsung’s feature makes things worse.

He says the Epic Games Store has now reached 10 million mobile installs, against a “fully achievable” target of 100 million by the end of the year. He characterizes that as “traction, but not a huge amount.”

In Epic vs Google, the company argued that Unknown Sources’ install flow made it so difficult to attract new users to a competing app store that Sweeney was ultimately forced to Fortnite to Google’s store, even though he promised Samsung he wouldn’t. While the jury wasn’t asked to rule on “Unknown Sources” specifically, they did decide that Epic had been harmed by Google’s conduct in general.

Epic is also asking for a jury trial this time.

Speaking of Epic vs. Googlewe expect Judge James Donato to issue his final order there at any moment, and it’s easy to imagine a world in which Epic vs Samsung is influenced by how he decides to change Google’s behavior. If he grants Epic’s biggest requests, the Google Play Store would be forced to offer the Epic Games Store and other app stores inside of it and third-party app stores like Epic’s would also get access to Google Play’s entire app catalog. In that world, Auto Blocker seems a little less relevant.

But an appeal from Google is guaranteed, and Epic is positioning today’s new lawsuit as a way to prevent and deter Google and partners from pursuing a “malicious compliance strategy” in the meantime. You could even argue that’s what Judge Donato asked for: in Epic vs. Googlehe repeatedly told Epic’s lawyers that he would not grant their request for an anti-circumvention provision to prevent Google from getting creative with solutions.

“We don’t do bans so as not to break the law… if you have a problem, you can come back,” he said last November.

Sweeney wouldn’t necessarily sue other companies that put up barriers to third-party app stores, but says Epic is “keeping a close eye on that.”

“Thankfully, no one has done this except Samsung, and we hope to keep it that way.”

Update, September 30: Added that Samsung and Google would not confirm or deny whether they worked on Auto Blocker together (or whether Auto Blocker scans for threats), and added explanations for both.