A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed against Automattic, the company behind WordPress, and its founder Matt Mullenweg, further escalating a dispute with web hosting provider WPEngine. The lawsuit, filed by WPEngine customer Ryan Keller, accuses Automattic and Mullenweg of intentionally breaking the contract and abusing their control over the WordPress ecosystem.
Keller, who runs Keller Holdings, a company that creates websites for businesses and individuals, is seeking damages for the affected businesses and a permanent injunction to prevent Automattic from using its control of WordPress.org to interfere with competitors.
The conflict centers on Automattic's conduct in September 2024, when the company blocked WPE's access to WordPress software updates, security patches, and plugins. The move is said to have affected hundreds of thousands of websites hosted by WPE, wreaking havoc on their maintenance and security.
The class action lawsuit covers all WPEngine customers in the United States who had an active hosting plan between September 24, 2024, and December 10, 2024.
Automattic claimed that its actions were motivated by a trademark infringement dispute with WPE. However, the lawsuit calls this a "poorly disguised attempt to extort WPE" for "tens of millions of dollars" related to use of the WordPress trademark.
Keller, a longtime WPE user for more than a decade, believes Automattic's actions cut off him and other WPE customers from access to important WordPress resources and put them in an "impossible position." The lawsuit highlights that WordPress software has long been promised to be "forever free and available to everyone," a promise that has fueled its widespread adoption, powering more than 40 percent of the world's websites.
This lawsuit follows a legal battle between WPE and Automattic. In December, a U.S. district judge issued a preliminary injunction in WPE's favor, ordering Automattic to stop blocking WPE customers from accessing the WordPress ecosystem and to remove public WPE customer lists.
Automattic has responded to the new lawsuit, calling it "baseless" and treating it as a replica of the "baseless allegations in the WPEngine lawsuit." The company maintains that it is committed to protecting open source principles and the broader WordPress community and expressed confidence that it will prevail in court.
The lawsuit raised concerns about the dispute's broader impact on the open source software community. Keller warned in the complaint that if left unchecked, Automattic's actions could "harm the entire Internet" and potentially set a dangerous precedent for banning access to open source software.
Conversely, if Automattic's actions are found to be illegal, the ruling will reinforce the idea that no one company can fully control an open source project. This may limit Automattic's ability to aggressively enforce WordPress trademarks in the future.