WordPress and phone home

[Elpie]

This doesn't address the privacy issue since few people will know that (a) WordPress sends private data back and (b) plugins have to be activated before filters will work (same with themes), but Mark has responded to our discussions on my blog by writing this up:

Excluding your plugin or theme from update checks « Mark on WordPress http://j.mp/6uecLJ

I appreciate Mark's contribution. He's most definitely one of the good guys!

[Brad]

Listen to this podcast about Facebook privacy - http://bit.ly/5NpZPP and read Jason Calacanis' post about it:
http://calacanis.com/2009/12/13/is-f...ss-or-unlucky/

I wonder what Jason would think about the WordPress privacy issues.

One thing he said on his blog reminded me of a comment I made earlier:
"Facebook’s IPO and revenue growth trumps user’s rights, right?"

[Elpie]

I like these quotes:

"We should treat personal electronic data with the same care and respect as weapons-grade plutonium - it is dangerous, long-lasting and once it has leaked there's no getting it back" - Cory Doctorow

And from one of his presentations:

We have an unfortunate tendency to conflate personal and private with secret and we say, "Well, given that this information isn't a secret, given that it's known by other people, how can you say that it's private?" And we can in fact say that there are a lot of things that are in secret that are in private. Every one of us does something private and not secret when we go to the bathroom. Every one of us has parents who did at least one private thing that's not a secret, otherwise we wouldn't be here.

More from that here: http://alfocus.ala.org/cory-doctorow...ion-transcript

[Ryan]

... Every one of us has parents who did at least one private thing that's not a secret, otherwise we wouldn't be here.

My recent walk through our local university at 2am would suggest that's not always done in private :p

[Elpie]

My recent walk through our local university at 2am would suggest that's not always done in private :p

There's laws against recording it without consent though ;)
Bit sad if those poor students couldn't find a bed

[Elpie]

Anyone recognise the name Daniella? I saw this come up as a referrer in my site logs: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives...comment-174525

[Jeffro]

If it's any conciliation, the detailed guidelines for hosting a plugin on the WordPress.org repository mention phoning home and how it's not allowed.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/about/guidelines/

No "phoning home" without user's informed consent. This seemingly simple rule actually covers several different aspects:

No unauthorized collection of user data. For example, sending the admin's email address back to your own servers without permission of the user is not allowed; but asking the user for an email address and collecting if they choose to submit it is fine. All actions taken in this respect MUST be of the user's doing, not automatically done by the plugin.

All images and scripts shown should be part of the plugin. These should be loaded locally. If the plugin does require that data is loaded from an external site (such as blocklists) this should be made clear in the plugin's admin screens or description. The point is that the user must be informed of what information is being sent where.

In general, things like banner or text link advertising should not be anywhere in a plugin, including on its settings screen. Advertising on settings screens is generally ineffective anyway, as ideally users rarely visit these screens, and the advertising is low quality because the advertising systems cannot see the page content to determine good ads. So they're best just left off entirely. Putting links back to your own site or to your social-network of choice is fine. If the plugin does include advertising from a third party service, then it must default to completely disabled, in order to prevent tracking information from being collected from the user without their consent. This is the method commonly known as "opt-in".

Note that if you do include what we consider to be "advertising spam", or attempt to game somebody else's advertising system, then we will not only remove your plugin, but also report your code to the advertising system's abuse mechanism as well. We do not react kindly to spam. Don't try it.

But WordPress itself is allowed to phone home without users consent. This topic is two years old but I thought it was an interesting follow up.

[andreasnrb]

Yeah it does seem a little hypocritical. Then we have the feeds on the WP Dashboard as well. I would consider that advertisement as well.
At least they don't ban donate buttons.

[Elpie]

Interesting indeed (and not a little hypocritical) but then, few people know and of those not so many care.