Why?

is that true?
I’m potentially interested in this plug-in, but this would be a big no-no.
Dear Arrogance is Bliss, do you have any evidence to support your claim? Can you show the code snippet doing this?

I am sorry but WPSymposium does not this.

Short answer, I don’t see where they are currently doing it (4 months later)

Long answer,

The offending code that I saw was in wpsymposium.php, on lines 117 and 118 of version 13.05:
`// Notify developers (feel free to comment out the next line)
@mail(‘[email protected]’, get_bloginfo(‘url’).’ installed v’.WPS_VER, get_bloginfo(‘url’));`

And it was there until version 13.08. As far as I can tell, it is no longer there. WPS Support would have been better off to say, “We stopped doing that”.

All versions currently available on www.ads-software.com (as of today, 12/09/13) in the developers link for WP Symposium, up until version 13.08 still contain that code. Something to keep in mind should anyone decide to install an older version of this plugin (I don’t know why).

The issue I had with it at the time (4 months ago, when I made my post) was that the plugin not only phoned home, but it sent via the hosing account, not through the WordPress mail function. That provided the username of the hosing account in the sent from of the email along with the WP version and the URL of the website. And at the time, the developer had said in another support thread that they weren’t doing it. That was very disturbing to me. That thread can be found at https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/plugin-wp-symposium-a-social-network-for-wordpress-omg-how-does-paid-software-make-it-in-here?replies=15 .

The developer later said it was an oversight, but it looked pretty intentional to me.

So, in response to your question @ionuke, yes, at the time I made the post, they were doing it. Currently, I don’t see where they are doing it. The offending code can still be found in the older versions available here, prior to version 13.08.

Since they have denied it before, and were doing it at the time of the denial, I would check the code myself to make sure it doesn’t do anything you don’t want it to do.

Just to confirm @ionuke that WP Symposium did in the past (4 months ago) but was only intended to help monitor the quantity of installations, to gauge the level of support required.

This code was removed and is no longer part of the plugin code. In hindsight I wish I had never done so! On the link pasted above, the WordPress forum admin closed down that topic as the discussion was deemed not to be constructive, and not part of support, which seemed sensible.

I really don’t want this to happen again here, so let’s take the WordPress forum admin’s advice and keep support tickets in the context of support, as this issue is now 4 months old.

If you want some non-affliated 3rd party references for the plugin I would be happy to arrange some for you if this would provide re-assurance.

Hope that’s ok. Thanks, Simon.

Yes, it is 4 months old. Had you responded to the question in the first place, there wouldn’t have been the further question, and thus my responding to the question and request to supply the documentation I had.

It might be a good idea to address questions in a timely manner to avoid situations like this in the future. However, given the fact that files currently available here have that code in them, I think it is important for potential users to be aware of it.

As far as non affiliated third party information, here is one. I know there are a lot of good reports. But this one is pretty in depth.
https://centralgeek.com/wp-symposium-good-bad/

This is an issue of the past. We all hope it stays in the past. Right, Simon?

Agreed.

PS. I’ll also remove versions on here prior to v13.08 to tidy things up.

Probably a good idea. Those kind of things have a habit of haunting.. lol