{"id":12091,"date":"2024-02-29T15:26:38","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T15:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iheartblank.net\/old\/?p=12091"},"modified":"2024-03-04T22:00:03","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T22:00:03","slug":"whats-the-deal-with-wordpress-selling-your-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iheartblank.net\/old\/whats-the-deal-with-wordpress-selling-your-data\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s The Deal With WordPress Selling Your Data To AI?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve gotten a few emails and this topic has been coming up on the blogs I check in the morning.\u00a0 It appears that WordPress and Tumblr are selling data to Midjourney and OpenAI.\u00a0 Before we get into some of the details, please understand that it appears that this will be for wordpress.com sites, and not self-hosted (wordpress.org) sites.\u00a0 Now, let’s get into some details.<\/p>\n

What’s Happening With Automattic Selling Data<\/h2>\n

A majority of the information I got, at least that made the most sense for me, comes from the Lifehacker article “Tumblr and WordPress Are Selling Your Data to AI Companies<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

As first reported by 404 Media<\/a>, the parent company for both sites sites, Automattic, has a entered into a deal to sell user data from Tumblr and WordPress to AI companies like Midjourney and OpenAI. The AI companies intend to use the data to train their systems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There were apparently some issues, even with the site, which you can read about in the Lifehacker article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Related article:\u00a0 WordPress and Tumblr will sell user data to train AI models \u2013 report<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s Not ALL WordPress Sites<\/h2>\n

Before we get started, there’s a difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org.\u00a0 wordpress.com is where you ‘sign up’ for WordPress (essentially) through<\/em> WordPress, similarly to using Wix.com or Shopify.\u00a0 You’re using their<\/em> hosting and their<\/em> platform to run your website.\u00a0 WordPress.org is where you download the WordPress CMS (or application) and host it on your own server, like we do here at I Heart Blank.\u00a0\u00a0Lifehacker also just posted an article<\/a> about the differences between .org and .com with a similar explanation of what that means.<\/p>\n

Initially, I was a little confused because WordPress (at least the way we use it) is an open-source and it’s ‘self-hosted’.\u00a0 I thought it would be weird that they would start scraping data from ‘private servers’.<\/p>\n

Automattic (who owns WordPress and Tumblr) has stated that the data selling will only effect wordpress.com sites and Tumblr.\u00a0 That makes sense because they are on Automattic’s hosting, they offer ‘free’ plans, etc.<\/p>\n

One potential caveat<\/a> could be if you’re using an Automattic plugin (like Jetpack) on your site.\u00a0 It could be that this will open you up to data scraping.\u00a0 I’m sure there will be more news about that in the future.<\/p>\n

What This Means For Your WordPress Site<\/h2>\n

So.\u00a0 It appears that wordpress.org sites are ‘safe’ from this data scraping.\u00a0 If you are on a wordpress.com site (or Tumblr, I assume) there will be an option to ‘opt out’ of this datascraping.<\/p>\n

Automattic has even released a statement titled “Protecting User Choice<\/a>,” which highlights some of the things they are doing:<\/p>\n

…we\u2019re doing a number of things at WordPress.com and Tumblr to give you more control over the content you\u2019ve created.<\/p>\n