WordPress All in One SEO Auto Updates Cause Backlash

According to user reports, All in One SEO plugin for WordPress unilaterally turned on automatic updates. The auto updates coincided with a major upgrade which in turn caused multiple sites to suffer outages and other unintended behavior.

Automatic Updates Without Consent

Automatic update is a feature that allows plugins to update automatically without any action from the publisher. The common expectation is that this is something that a publisher opts into it.

Some publishers backup their WordPress installations before updating. That way if something goes wrong they can easily roll it back to…