Wordpress - Automattic stats plugin
Some brief initial thoughts… The name is “automattic stats“, not “wordpress stats”, and unless I’m missing something, there’s no visible privacy statement. Maybe it conforms to USA laws on the subject, but since USA laws have no existence for many, if not most, WordPress users, what of this?
The data mining aspect is interesting, in that (especially) with the proposed exposition of the API, wordpress.com would be working for any application that cared to use the service - and since nothing is for nothing…
This development further blurs the boundaries between wordpress.com and .org. For propriety, I do rather feel that this plugin should not be offered on wordpress.org
By Matt, May 7, 2007 @ 6:54 am
Like Akismet, and anything else we host on Wordpress.com, it’s covered by our privacy policy:
http://automattic.com/privacy/
We’ve gotten very good feedback on the policy since we launched it a few months after WordPress.com, and thanks to its CC licensing it’s even been adopted by a few other services.
By Lewis, May 7, 2007 @ 10:35 am
Thanks for the reply - however, this statement from said privacy policy:
We don’t share your personal information with anyone except to … [] …, develop our products, …
would seem on (amateur) legal reading not to preclude the sale of data.
I know this is the basis of third-party webstats all over, and is probably part of the game for Automattic Inc and wordpress.com, but - to repeat - is it something wordpress.org should be associated with?
By Matt, May 7, 2007 @ 8:51 pm
If I thought a company was that unethical I would stop using their software as soon as possible.
By Juan, May 8, 2007 @ 7:36 am
Wordpress is still better than anyting else and at least its got a privacy policy
By Albright, May 8, 2007 @ 11:27 am
Described as WordPress.com stats plugin for WordPress.org bloggers on photomatt
By Lewis, May 8, 2007 @ 4:00 pm
I haven’t, here, offered any criticism of Automattic Inc’s ethics - the issue is a clarity of separation between commercial and Open source interests. Wordpress (the software) is not owned by Automattic.
As it happens, yes, I wasn’t planning to use the stats plugin…
By Jenny, May 26, 2007 @ 6:03 pm
Well, I feel better knowing my stats aren’t out there for every freak and their mother to see.