{"id":1235243,"date":"2025-02-26T15:44:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T20:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1235243"},"modified":"2025-02-26T15:44:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T20:44:14","slug":"automattics-nuclear-war-over-wordpress-access-sparks-potential-class-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1235243","title":{"rendered":"Automattic\u2019s \u201cnuclear war\u201d over WordPress access sparks potential class action"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The company behind WordPress, Automattic Inc., and its founder, Matt Mullenweg, continue to face backlash over a <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2024\/10\/automattic-demanded-web-host-pay-32m-annually-for-using-wordpress-trademark\/\">&#8220;nuclear war&#8221; started with WP Engine<\/a> (WPE) that allegedly messed with maintenance and security of hundreds of thousands of websites.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a proposed class action <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Keller-v-Automattic-Complaint-2-21-25.pdf\">lawsuit<\/a> filed this weekend, a WPE customer, Ryan Keller, accused Automattic and Mullenweg of &#8220;deliberately abusing their power and control over the WordPress ecosystem to purposefully, deliberately, and repeatedly disrupt contracts&#8221;\u2014all due to a supposed trademark infringement claim. If granted, the class would include &#8220;all persons in the United States who had ongoing active WPE WordPress Web Hosting Plans on or before September 24, 2024 through December 10, 2024.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2024\/10\/automattic-demanded-web-host-pay-32m-annually-for-using-wordpress-trademark\/\">WPE had previously sued Automattic and Mullenweg<\/a>, alleging that the attack on WPE was actually an attempt to extort what Keller alleged was &#8220;tens of millions of dollars&#8221; in payments from WPE for using the WordPress trademark. Mullenweg made it clear that the value of the payments was &#8220;based on what he thought WPE could afford, rather than what the value of the trademark actually was,&#8221; Keller&#8217;s complaint alleged.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2025\/02\/automattic-shirked-duty-to-keep-wordpress-free-for-everyone-lawsuit-says\/\">Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2025\/02\/automattic-shirked-duty-to-keep-wordpress-free-for-everyone-lawsuit-says\/#comments\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The company behind WordPress, Automattic Inc., and its founder, Matt Mullenweg, continue to face backlash over a &#8220;nuclear war&#8221; started with WP Engine (WPE) that allegedly messed with maintenance and security of hundreds of thousands of websites. In a proposed &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1235243\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,44,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1235243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ars-technica","category-technology","category-unfiltered-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1235243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1235243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1235243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1235243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}