Epic Games claims Google and Samsung worked together to limit competitors in the App Store

Epic's lawsuit, filed in federal court for the Northern District of California, focuses on Samsung's Auto-Blocker feature, which the phone maker describes as a security feature that protects a user's device by “blocking the installation of applications from unauthorized sources and blocks malicious activity.” ”

When the Auto Blocker service is enabled, only apps from authorized sources can be installed, namely Google's Play Store and Samsung's Galaxy Store. Epic claims Samsung does not provide a path for third-party stores to become “authorized sources.”

Epic's lawsuit notes that Auto Blocker was originally introduced as an opt-in feature, but in July Samsung announced it would be enabled by default – impacting the newly launched Epic Games Store on Android.

The video game company claims that with this change, users will now have to go through a “laborious 21-step process to download an app outside of the Google Play Store or Samsung Galaxy Store.”

Epic claims that the move to enable the automatic blocker by default was a “coordinated action” by Google and Samsung to preemptively undermine the remedies that the federal court is expected to soon issue in the antitrust case the game maker brought against Google last year won.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told the Wall Street Journal that around 50% of users who try to install the Epic Games Store on Android give up due to the “friction” caused by Google and Samsung.

Samsung told Forbes that it intends to “vigorously contest Epic Game's baseless claims” and that the features built into its devices are “designed in accordance with Samsung's core principles of security, privacy and user control.”