ACF Returned to WP Engine: Automattic and Matt Mullenweg Remove Login Checkbox and Domain.csv File

Following the court’s granting of a preliminary injunction in favor of WP Engine, Automattic and Matt Mullenweg have adhered to the court’s directives. This includes removing the domains.csv file hosted on the WP Engine Tracker website, returning the ACF plugin back to WP Engine, removing the login checkbox, and restoring their access to WordPress.org.

A Snapshot of Changes: Before and After

Domain.csv file removed

Automattic and Matt Mullenweg have removed the domain.csv file from the WP Engine Tracker website. The file contained a list of websites hosted on WP Engine. 

Here’s a screenshot of the WP Engine Tracker website before the injunction was granted. Here, we can see that the CSV file was available to anyone who visited the website.

The website has seen an update after the preliminary injunction was granted which has led to the removal of this file. The updated homepage is as follows.

The GitHub repository also shows the pull request that was issued to remove this.

Login checkbox removed

The mandatory checkbox that users needed to comply with so as to complete the login process at login.wordpress.org has also been removed. The below checkbox was implemented back in October 2024.

This mandatory login checkbox has now been removed and the current login screen is as follows.

ACF plugin returned

The ACF plugin which was forked into Secure Custom Fields, has also been returned to WP Engine. However, the Secure Custom Fields with ACF pro features is still available as the preliminary injunction didn’t mention anything about it.

The webpage of the forked version of the ACF plugin is seen below. You can see the URL states “advanced-custom-fields” whereas the name reflects Secure Custom Fields and that the developer is WordPress.org.

A more detailed view of the developers list for the forked SCF plugin.

Here’s the plugin page after the plugin has been returned to WP Engine as per the court order.

Note that the developers list no longer mentions WordPress.org.

Restored WordPress.org access

The access to WordPress.org has also been restored. The court order stated that access to WordPress.org should be allowed for WP Engine’s users, employees, and Related Entities.