Automattic Reduces Contributions to the WordPress Project

• “The Automattic Team” has announced they will reduce their contribution to the WordPress project to match that of WP Engine (or, about 45 hours per week).
• The decision was made “to reallocate resources due to the lawsuits from WP Engine,” and as a result of “attacks” from members of the WordPress community “who want Matt and others to step away from the project.”
• Automatticians who were focused on core contributions will instead work on for-profit projects like WordPress.com, Jetpack, and WooCommerce, since “members of the ‘community’ have said that working on these sorts of things should count as a contribution to WordPress.”
• Automattic plans to return to actively contributing to WordPress core “when the legal attacks have stopped.”

AccessiBe Gets Stung for Misleading Accessibility Promises

• The accessibility overlay AccessiBe faces a $1 million fine from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for misleading claims about its ability to make websites WCAG compliant.
• The tool promised full compliance for websites using its accessWidget but failed to deliver (or provide adequate evidence), violating FTC truth-in-advertising laws.
• “Companies looking for help making their websites WCAG compliant must be able to trust that products do what they are advertised to do,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Overstating a product’s AI or other capabilities without adequate evidence is deceptive, and the FTC will act to stop it.”
• Concerns also arose over the authenticity of reviews positioned as impartial endorsements of AccessiBe’s services.
• In 2021, the National Federation of the Blind passed a resolution describing accessiBe’s marketing and business practices as “disrespectful and misleading.”
• Later that year, 400 blind people, accessibility advocates, and software developers created the Overlay Fact Sheet, calling on companies that use accessibility overlays to stop.
• The FTC order was approved by all five FTC Commissioners and will be published soon in the Federal Register. It will be open for public comment for 30 days, after which the Commission will decide whether to make it final.

The U.S. TikTok Ban is About More than Just TikTok

• Today, the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing a law that could force TikTok to separate from China-owned ByteDance or face a U.S. ban on January 19.
• The law bans apps operated by a company controlled by a foreign adversary (China, Russia, North Korea or Iran).
• In its argument posed to the Court, the U.S. government stated that the magnitude of user data TikTok collects be used for “espionage or blackmail” or “sowing discord and disinformation during a crisis.”
• TikTok says separation from ByteDance not possible and challenges the law on a first amendment basis, joined by a coalition of TikTok users.
• The case represents a pivotal moment in determining how the U.S. government can regulate foreign-owned platforms.
• In addition, digital communication rights could be redefined as national security is weighed against free speech.
• If it passes, the ban wouldn’t immediately remove TikTok from phones but would prevent updates and new downloads.
• Complicating matters, President-elect Trump has pledged his suppot for TikTok.

Cloudflare 2024 Year in Review: What Does it Mean for Your Agency in 2025?

• The Cloudflare Radar 2024 Year in Review offers some interesting insights about the state of the internet.
• Traffic
  • Global internet traffic rose more than 17%.
  • Google maintained its position as the most popular Internet service overall.
  • OpenAI remained at the top of the Generative AI category.
  • WhatsApp remained the top Messaging platform.
  • Facebook remained the top Social Media site.
• Browsers
  • Chrome is by far the most popular browser overall on desktops.
  • Edge is the second most popular browser on Windows machines.
  • Safari is still way ahead of Chrome on iOS devices.
• Adoption & Usage
  • React, PHP, and jQuery remained dominant technologies for building websites globally.
  • HTTP/3 adoption grew, now powering more than 20% of web requests.
• Connectivity
  • 2024 saw 225 major Internet disruptions, many a result of government shutdowns. Cable cuts and power outages were also leading causes.
  • Globally, over 41% of internet traffic comes from mobile devices. In almost 100 countries, mobile traffic is the majority.
  • IPv6 adoption is rising, accounting for over 28% of all requests.
• Security
  • 6.5% of global web traffic was classified and mitigated as potentially malicious or unsafe.
  • Gambling and Gaming was the most attacked industry.
  • The Log4j Apache vulnerability discovered in 2021 remains a persistent threat was still being actively targeted in 2024.
• Email Security
  • 4.3% of emails were flagged as malicious, dominated by deceptive links and identity forgeries.
  • Virtually all (99%+) of email from the .bar, .rest, and .uno TLDs were found to be spam or malicious.

Worth a Look

• The “Holiday Break” is over and WordPress.org is open, all services have been restored.
• Patchstack has been rejected as a sponsor for WCEU because they didn’t make a pledge for “Five for the Future.” This after they recently sponsored an event that cleaned up hundreds of dangerous plugins from the directory.
• Meta Box has released a Lite version that provides a UI for all their free tools for managing custom fields and dynamic content.