One of the benefits of knowing really sharp bloggers is they notice and warn other bloggers right away of changes that are detrimental to their blogs.
When business coach and online project management consultant Vernessa Taylor noticed that the subscribe to comments function Ileane usually used was replaced by an email from WordPress.com, they discussed the issue and realized the latest update of JetPack Stats – a WordPress provided stats plugin – was the culprit.
Vernessa feels the same way I do about what WordPress, Themes and plugins should and should NOT do and high on my list is the belief that they should NOT change how my blogs work without notifying me FIRST and giving me the option to refuse.
Automattic made JetPack 1.2.1 override the existing Subscribe to Comments plugin most serious bloggers we know use and hijacked control over where they subscribe. Vernessa’s solution was to delete JetPack altogether.
Every serious Internet marketer knows the money is in your list –
So taking away control of your list is a VERY SERIOUS matter!
Content Strategist Doc Sheldon reads Vernessa’s blog, so he published a heads-up post of his own about the Automattic Jetpack Plugin called “You Crossed the Line! You’re FIRED!” where he suggests switching to JetPack Lite as an alternative remedy.
This is NOT the first time Automattic has decided to make changes
to WordPress stats without giving bloggers any heads up in advance.
Not acceptable, Automattic. Bloggers need to be thinking about what we will do if even more egregious issues arise. If anyone has the skills (or knows someone who does) to go back to the last WordPress version before Automattic took control of it and bring an independent version since that fork up to speed do let us know?
Has anyone switched to the Google Analytics Alternative Piwik ? I would really love to get off all things “Borg” and use independent, more trustworthy alternatives.
Piwik – if you’re listening – I’ve been asking about you for a long time now. I’ve been hoping you’d see I am serious about promoting your solution to our blogging collaborations.
Gail Gardner
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hi there…
did the automatic jetpack can control hijack commend without permission? i don’t thing so….
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I was wondering about that! I run a bunch of WordPress blogs and noticed that happened on all of them, thanks for pointing it out!
So thats why a new field saying “Subscribe to new posts by email” appeared seemingly out of nowhere underneath my comment form when I already had a subscribe to comments plugin?!
Well I just went into Jetpack admin and simply deactivated that particular Subscription widget as there is an option..
But I do understand why this is considered unethical because if they can do that then they can basically take over any blog they want or even worse destroy a blog :0
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Hi there,
I beleive that the automatic jetpack stats plugin hijacking issue must be addressed to the wordpress otherwise how to trust the plugins developers?
Regards. Tanya
this is again another advantage of wordpress over blogger. i’ve been dreaming of having a wordpress blog
That’s a trip, really (about Jetpack). Very un-Matt like I’d think (or is it right in character? Like how Akismet is auto-installed?)…
Not to character-assassinate anyone here, but hey…you started my blood boiling. 😛
Anyway, you asked about Piwik: I used Open Web Analytics and it worked out great – they added more functions to Piwik (like mouse tracking, for example), but being on a reseller account at HostGator, my one complaint was the diskspace/bandwidth issue (I get those confused).
I noticed it was saving a LOT of data in my database so I axed it…but I think you can tell it what you want to record. Right now I’m using StatCounter premium, it’s perfect for what I want: the Keyword data.
But check out the OWA before settling on Piwik – you might like it better. They’re very similar (forked).
interesting. Thanks for the other options. I will have to look at statcounter, sounds like a solid program.
JetPak Lite upgraded today and now we got this stupid comment tracking thing for blog comments. Plus now if i want to edit or write a blog post, the screen goes blank. I have to disable the jetpak lite plugin to write a blog post now.
Looks like i am going to remove this plugin and stick to using analytic’s now.
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Actually it is a well known thing thing that there is no need to set different plugins that have near the same features… just use what works good and you will have a success 🙂
I am quite shocked, I am totally against it! What about the right we all have to express our opinion?!
Hi Gail,
I am not using Jetpack in my blog right now but it surely is not an accepted act by Automattic by enabling and disabling anything they want in our blog without notifying the owner of the blog and without providing the option of deactivating or refusing it. Anyways it seems that it is good that I do not use JetPack
Hi Doc and welcome back to GrowMap,
Vernessa mentioned that you had also written about it so I wanted to include your insights on the issue. Automattic already knows me because I’m the one that was the most unhappy about how Akismet was blacklisting my best commenters.
I am sure this change was intentional and tonight I am seeing something else very strange – some of my mouseover text to other posts on my blog within my blog posts suddenly has “Permanent Link to” appended in front of the mouseover text I wrote.
If I wanted my links to say that I would write them that way. The question now is what is controlling that and why has it changed. If you (or anyone reading this) knows or even has a theory on what could be doing that do please comment.
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I think the biggest problem is that WordPress do not have any controls on their plugins. They should have officially approved plug-ins, which are only released after their own coders have verified that their is nothing malicious in the code.
People are too trusting of plug-ins when they could have been written by anyone.
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This is certainly not acceptable. It is important to know control what you automate and what you do not. By taking it out of your hands like this they are breaking a cardinal rule. The bad thing is it is so easy for something like this to go unnoticed by a blog owner.
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Is Jetpack Lite the only good alternative? Seems like Jetpack should be avoided altogether. That is messed up.
Hi Annie,
Not using it at all would be a better alternative in my book because once someone has proven themselves to be untrustworthy the best thing to do is avoid them.
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Update: This part of the plugin can be deactivated. I filled out a JetPack survey to tell them how upset I was at the furtive update to their plugin.
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Kudos to Vernessa and Ileane for figuring this out! Changes like this are not acceptable and should be publicized. Thanks for helping to spread the word. I’m off to deactive Automattic Jetpack and let others know.
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How dare they! Surely we should control or own blogs and how they should work and present to the world.
Not good enough Automattic
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Wow, that is definitely unacceptable.. Thanks for sharing this!