Earlier this week, nearly all of the more than 77 million websites hosted by WordPress.com were inaccessible to the people of Turkey, due to broad and arbitrary censorship by the Turkish government. We began to hear reports of service outages during the evening of Monday, July 27, Istanbul time. The blocks were apparently removed by midday […]
Read more →We’re pleased to release the latest update to our transparency report, covering the period of January 1 – June 30, 2015. We try to make each new transparency report more…transparent, by adding new and more detailed information about the legal demands we receive, our responses to them, and the internal policies that guide our actions. […]
Read more →We’ve said it time and time again: user privacy is important to us. We’re vigilant about protecting it on WordPress.com, and we’re always on the lookout, ready to weigh in on policy proposals that might curtail the privacy that we and our users value so highly. Today, our focus turns to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names […]
Read more →Every day we receive a significant number of requests to have content removed from sites hosted on WordPress.com. Many of these involve alleged copyright violations making use of the DMCA takedown process, or the publication of sensitive private information. We review every single one by hand to ensure that the processes are not being abused […]
Read more →We strongly believe in the power of open source software, and have seen first hand how it can empower communities to build better software for an endless variety of applications, from the ground up. Bitcoin, and other digital currencies, are great examples of how open, community driven development can spark innovations that would be very […]
Read more →In the past, we’ve not been shy about highlighting a number of the issues that exist with the DMCA, and recently fought back against its abuse in court. However, it remains true that tackling repeated instances of copyright infringement online can be repetitive work, and it’s no surprise that some people opt to outsource this […]
Read more →WordPress.com aims to democratize publishing – to build the tools that give writers, bloggers, and creators of all sizes a way to get their voices to the world. Today we see that our voices were heard, and that they had a big impact on the future of the internet. This morning, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler […]
Read more →At Automattic, we are firm believers in the power of open source: the release of code (or other works) into the public domain to be used, modified, and shared freely. One of the challenges faced by online service providers is how to implement an effective policy for dealing with the DMCA takedown process – especially […]
Read more →The Electronic Frontier Foundation yesterday released a new version of their Who Has Your Back? report, focused on protecting user speech from “copyright & trademark bullies.” We’re proud that WordPress.com was awarded all five possible stars in the report — one of only two services to earn that honor. “When a private citizen or corporation wants to silence […]
Read more →Trademarks are important. They allow businesses to build up value in their brands, and give us the ability to distinguish between competitors in crowded marketplaces. In theory, they are necessary to make sure that people are getting the products or services at the standard which they expect. Naturally, this system requires a means of legal […]
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Transparency Report 