WordPress News Roundup May 2018: WordPress 4.9.6 Brings Privacy Tools for GDPR as WordPress Turns 15

May 2018 was defined by two dates. On May 25, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation took effect, and WordPress was ready with version 4.9.6, released on May 17 with tools for consent, privacy policies and personal data requests. Two days later, on May 27, the WordPress community marked 15 years since the first release with more than 200 parties around the world.

It was an unusual minor release: 4.9.6 added features normally reserved for a major version, a sign of how seriously the project took GDPR. Meanwhile, Gutenberg kept moving toward its final stages, and the community began looking ahead to WordCamp Europe in Belgrade.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments

No major WordPress acquisitions or funding rounds were announced in May. Companies across the ecosystem were busy shipping GDPR updates, but the calm would not last: June would bring WP Engine’s purchase of StudioPress and Automattic’s acquisition of Atavist.

WordPress Core Updates

• WordPress 4.9.6: Released May 17 as a privacy and maintenance release, announced by Allen Snook. It let logged-out commenters choose whether their details were saved in a cookie, let site owners designate a privacy policy page shown on login and registration screens, added a privacy policy guide with suggested text from core and participating plugins, and introduced tools to export and erase a user’s personal data, with email confirmation of each request.
• More in 4.9.6: The release contained 95 updates in total, including a “Mine” filter in the media library, display of plugins’ minimum PHP versions, new PHP polyfills and an update to TinyMCE 4.7.11. The update guide explained how plugins could hook into the new privacy tools.
• Beta and RC: A beta arrived in early May and a release candidate on May 11, giving plugin developers only a short window to test their integrations.
• Update rollout: Some sites did not receive 4.9.6 automatically right away, and WP Tavern explained why in a follow-up. The release post reminded anyone still on 4.9.3 to update manually.
• Gutenberg 2.9: The May 18 release let plugins pin items to the editor header, added keyboard shortcut tooltips and a reusable font size picker, moved block controls below blocks on mobile and improved the table block.
• Build process: Significant work on core’s build process landed in preparation for merging Gutenberg.

Other WordPress News

• WordPress turns 15: On Sunday, May 27, communities held 224 events worldwide, listed on the WP15 site, with more still to come. The WordPress Foundation even amended its trademark policy to allow the logo on anniversary baked goods.
• WordPress.org privacy policy: On May 25, WordPress.org published an updated privacy policy and a new cookie policy covering WordPress.org, WordCamp.org, BuddyPress.org, bbPress.org and related sites. The project said data handling had not changed, only how clearly it was explained.
• Closing unused plugins: The Plugin Review team began closing plugins that had been approved but left unused, freeing up names and review resources.
• WordCamp US 2018: Speaker applications opened for December’s event in Nashville, with submissions accepted until July 1.
• WordCamp Europe: Livestream tickets became available for the June 14–16 event in Belgrade.
• WordCamp Retreat: Attendees shared recaps of the first WordCamp Retreat, a new retreat-style WordCamp format.
• Community apps: Marcel Schmitz released an unofficial WordCamp app for iOS.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

• A privacy release, not a security release: 4.9.6 did not fix any disclosed vulnerabilities, and no core security issues were announced during May. The new export and erasure tools did, however, introduce new code paths for personal data that plugin developers were urged to integrate with carefully.
• GDPR compliance plugins: A flood of consent and compliance plugins appeared around the deadline. Site owners were advised to keep them updated and to remember that, as WordPress.org now stated in its guidelines, no plugin could guarantee legal compliance.
• Looking ahead: A file deletion issue affecting WordPress 4.9.6 and earlier would be publicly disclosed by researchers in late June.

Industry Trends and Insights

• GDPR day: May 25 brought a wave of privacy policy emails and consent banners across the web, and some US publishers temporarily blocked visitors from the EU rather than comply. WordPress’s decision to build privacy tools into core put compliance features in the hands of millions of small site owners.
• Fifteen years of WordPress: From a fork of b2 in 2003 to a platform running about 30% of the web, the anniversary showed how far the project had come, and how much of its strength lay in local communities.
• Gutenberg nears the finish: With the editor in its final stages, agencies and product companies were moving from wait-and-see to active preparation.
• The end of Storify: Storify shut down on May 16, a reminder of the risks of relying on hosted services to preserve published content.

Theme of the Month: Twenty Seventeen

With no new default theme planned for 2018, Twenty Seventeen remained the theme every fresh WordPress install started with as site owners set up their new privacy policy pages. Its business-focused design and front-page sections made it a solid, well-maintained base for the many small sites updating for GDPR.

Plugin of the Month: Gutenberg

Gutenberg 2.9 added extensibility for plugins and a series of usability improvements in May, and the project described the editor as nearing its final stages. For developers, the new header pinning API was an early look at how plugins would integrate with the post-5.0 editing experience.

Host of the Month: SiteGround

SiteGround, a hosting company with roots in the European Union, was well placed to help customers in a month defined by EU privacy law. Hosts with European operations and data centers became an attractive option for site owners thinking harder about where their visitors’ data was stored.

Founder of the Month: Mike Little

Mike Little co-founded WordPress with Matt Mullenweg in 2003, after replying to Matt’s blog post about forking b2. As the community celebrated 15 years since the first release, his part in the project’s beginnings, and his continued involvement in the UK community, deserved recognition.

Looking Ahead to June 2018

June would be dominated by WordCamp Europe, set for June 14–16 in Belgrade, Serbia, where Gutenberg and the aftermath of GDPR were expected to be the main topics and Matt Mullenweg would take questions from the community.

Core work was expected to focus on stability and the next 4.9.x maintenance release, while Gutenberg development continued at pace. WordCamp US speaker applications would stay open until July 1.