Epic Clash. The maker of the popular video game “Fortnite” Epic Games on Monday accused Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet and among others the creator of the Android operating system, and Samsung, the world’s largest maker of Android mobile phones, of concerted practices so that the digital app store Google’s Play to face no competition.

Epic said it will file a lawsuit in US federal court in California alleging that a Samsung smartphone security feature called ‘Auto Blocker’ is actually intended to prevent users from downloading Android apps from other sources except Play store or Samsung Galaxy store.

Samsung and Google are violating US antitrust laws by reducing consumer choice and preventing competition that would make apps less expensive, Epic said.

The digital game company insists that Samsung’s Auto Blocker was designed to soften the impact of a US verdict won by Epic against Google in December 2023, which is expected to force the company to make it easier to acquire apps from other sources (sideloading ).

Epic said it “will also raise its competition concerns with regulators in the European Union,” which has long been looking into Google’s business practices.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney called the lawsuit part of a “big global fight” to defend competition and its benefits to consumers.

Samsung introduced Auto Blocker to its smartphones in late 2023 as an option to protect users from downloading apps that may contain malware. Epic said Samsung made Auto Blocker the default setting in July and intentionally made it difficult to disable or bypass.