WP Engine escalated its Federal grievance by citing Automattic’s publication of the WP Engine Tracker web site as proof of intent to hurt WP Engine and exposing prospects to potential cybercrimes. The up to date grievance incorporates current actions by Mullenweg to additional strengthen their case.
A spokesperson for WP Engine issued a press release to Search Engine Journal in regards to the WP Engine Tracker web site:
“Automattic’s wrongful and reckless publication of buyer’s data with out their consent underscores why we’ve got moved for a preliminary injunction. WP Engine has requested the quick takedown of this data and appears ahead to the November twenty sixth listening to on the injunction.”
Authorized Criticism Amended With Extra Proof
WP Engine (WPE) filed a grievance in Federal courtroom searching for a preliminary injunction to forestall Matt Mullenweg and Automattic from persevering with actions that hurt WPE’s enterprise and their relationships with their prospects. That grievance was amended with additional particulars to assist their allegations in opposition to Mullenweg and Automattic.
The authorized grievance begins by stating in normal phrases what offers rise to their declare:
“It is a case about abuse of energy, extortion, and greed.”
It then grows progressively particular by introducing proof of how Automattic and Mullenweg proceed their “dangerous acts unabated” for the aim of harming WP Engine (WPE).
The amended declare provides the next, quoting Mullenweg himself:
“Since then, Defendants have continued to escalate their warfare, unleashing a marketing campaign to steal WPE’s software program, prospects and workers. Certainly, simply days in the past, Defendants had been unambiguous about their future plans:”
That is the assertion Mullenweg made that’s quoted within the amended grievance:
“[S]ince this began [with WPE] they’ve had uh, we estimate tens of hundreds of consumers go away. . . . So, um you understand, I feel over the following few weeks, they’re truly gonna lose excess of 8% of their enterprise . . . we’re at warfare with them. We’re . . . going to go brick by brick and take . . . take each single one among their prospects . . . in the event that they weren’t round guess what? . . . We’d fortunately have these prospects, and actually we’re getting a whole lot of them.”
WP Engine Tracker Website Used As Proof
Automattic lately created an internet site on the WordPressEngineTracker.com area known as WP Engine Tracker that encourages WordPress Engine prospects to go away, providing hyperlinks to promotions that supply reductions and promise a easy transition to different internet hosts.
WPE states that the WP Engine Tracker web site is a part of a marketing campaign to encourage WPE prospects to desert it, writing:
“Defendants additionally created a webpage at wordpress.org providing “Promotions and Coupons” to persuade WPE prospects to cease doing enterprise with WPE and change over to Automattic’s competitor internet hosting firms like wordpress.com and Pressable; they later added hyperlinks to different opponents as nicely.”
The WordPress Engine Tracker web site calls consideration to the variety of websites which have deserted WP Engine (WPE) since Matt Mullenweg’s September twenty first public denunciation of WP Engine and the beginning of his “nuclear” warfare in opposition to the online host. The amended Federal lawsuit factors to the September twenty first date listed on that website as further proof tying Automattic to a marketing campaign to hurt WP Engine’s enterprise.
The authorized doc explains:
“Simply final week, in an obvious effort to brag about how profitable they’ve been in harming WPE, Defendants created an internet site—www.wordpressenginetracker.com—that “checklist[s] . . . each area hosted by @wpengine, which you’ll be able to see decline day by day. 15,080 websites have left already since September twenty first.
September 21 was not chosen randomly. It’s the day after Defendants’ self-proclaimed nuclear warfare started – an admission that these buyer losses had been brought on by Defendants’ wrongful actions. On this extraordinary assault on WPE and its prospects, Defendants included on their disparaging web site a downloadable file of ‘all [WPE] websites prepared for a brand new house’—that’s, WPE’s buyer checklist, actually inviting others to focus on and poach WPE’s purchasers whereas Defendants’ assaults on WPE continued..”
The aim of the above allegations are to construct as a lot proof that lend credence to WP Engine’s declare that Automattic is actively making an attempt to trigger hurt WP Engine’s enterprise.
WPE Accuses Automattic Of Further Harms
One other new allegation in opposition to Automattic is that the spreadsheet provided for obtain on the WP Engine Tracker web site consists of delicate data that’s not publicly out there and will trigger direct hurt to WPE prospects.
The amended Federal lawsuit explains:
“Worse, this downloadable file incorporates non-public data relating to WPE’s prospects’ domains, together with growth, check, and pre-production servers—lots of which aren’t meant to be accessed publicly and comprise delicate or non-public data. Many of those servers are deliberately not listed or in any other case included in public search outcomes as a result of the servers will not be protected, safe or production-ready and never meant to be accessed by most people.
By disclosing this data to most people, Defendants put these growth, check, and pre-production domains in danger for hacking and unauthorized entry.”
WP Engine Tracker Website Half Of A Bigger Technique
WPE’s amended grievance alleges that the WP Engine Tracker website is one half of a bigger technique to trigger hurt to WP Engine’s enterprise that features encouraging WPE workers to resign. The authorized doc provides new data of how the WP Engine Tracker web site is only one half of a bigger technique to hurt WPE’s enterprise.
The up to date doc provides the next new allegations as proof of WPE’s claims:
“Not content material with interfering with WPE’s buyer relations, Automattic has lately escalated its ways by actively recruiting a whole lot of WPE workers, in an obvious effort to weaken WPE by sowing doubts in regards to the firm’s future and engaging WPE’s workers to hitch Automattic:”
The doc features a screenshot of an e mail solicitation apparently despatched to an worker that encourages them to hitch Automattic.
Screenshot Of Proof Offered In Amended Criticism
Escalation Of Federal Criticism
WP Engine’s amended grievance in opposition to Mullenweg and Automattic invokes the Sherman Act (prohibiting monopolization to keep up a aggressive market), the Lanham Act (governing logos, false promoting, and unfair competitors), and the Laptop Fraud and Abuse Act (addressing unauthorized pc entry and cybercrimes). The amendments tie current actions by Mullenweg and Automattic—such because the creation of the WP Engine Tracker web site—on to their claims, turning Mullenweg’s assaults on WP Engine into proof.
Learn the amended Federal grievance right here: (PDF).
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