WP Engine recently won a preliminary injunction against WordPress.com's parent company Automattic. On Tuesday, California District Court Judge orders Automate to stop blocking Interference with WP Engine's access to WordPress.org resources and its plugins.
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguin found merit in WP Engine's claims that Automattic's actions harmed business relationships, saying that Mullenweg's “conduct is designed to cause infringement or disruption.” related to Automattic's argument that blamed WP Engine Relying on WordPress.org to power his business didn't sound very attractive to Judge Martínez-Olguín.
“Whereas the defendants have described WPEngine's harm as self-imposed because it built its business around a website 'which it had no contractual right to use…' The role of the defendants in causing that loss through means and not to any other competitor cannot be ignored,” the ruling says.
The Verge Automattic contacted WP Engine with a request for comment, but did not immediately respond.
The ruling found that WP Engine showed that without injunctive relief it would suffer irreparable harm, while also impacting members of the WordPress community. Under the preliminary injunction, Automattic must remove listings of companies it displayed on the site it created Track Outgoing WP Engine Customersas well as remove checkbox Which asks WordPress users to verify that they are not affiliated with WP Engine when logging in.