After months of lawsuits, injunctions, plugin disputes, and public sparring between Automattic and WP Engine, WordPress is showing its first sustained market share decline in years. As first reported by Search Engine Journal, new data from web technology tracker W3Techs puts WordPress at 41.9 percent of all websites, down from 43.2 percent six months earlier and extending a losing streak that stretches back into 2025. The numbers are hardly catastrophic for software that still powers more than two-fifths of the web, but they represent a notable shift for a platform whose market share had remained stable for years. For years, the W3Techs charts were about as exciting as watching paint dry. WordPress sat at roughly 43 percent of the web and rarely moved very far in either direction. Last year, the line started bending downward, and by January 2026, it had slipped to 43.0 percent from 43.6 percent a year earlier. By the end of May, it was sitting at 41.9 percent. Not everyone is heading south. Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, and Webflow all posted small gains in the W3Techs data, while Duda sat exactly where it was a year ago. The obvious question is why. Some observers point to increasingly capable competitors, while others have noted a more recent development: WordPress's prolonged, high-profile conflict with hosting provider WP Engine. The decline in market share began shortly after Automattic chief executive Matt Mullenweg launched a campaign against WP Engine that escalated into lawsuits, injunctions, contributor disputes, plugin controversies, and a steady stream of public recriminations. The W3Techs data shows correlation, not causation. There is currently no evidence that website owners are abandoning WordPress specifically because of the WP Engine dispute. Plenty of other factors could be at play, including growing competition from hosted platforms and newer web frameworks. The WP Engine dispute may ultimately prove unrelated. But either way, Automattic now has a problem it did not have a couple of years ago: the numbers are no longer moving in its favor. ®

MPs have told the government to cut its ties with Palantir, and end the US spy-tech firm's controversial involvement in the National Health Service's Federated Data Platform. Warning against vendor lock-in across government, the House of Common science and technology committee said it was most concerned about Palantir, which had secured central roles in health and defense systems. “Palantir should not have a such a significant role in the UK public sector… it is far from the only company capable of providing the data analysis ‘middleware’ required by public bodies,” the report from the Science Innovation and Technology Committee said. The report notes concerns about Palantir’s origins as a company getting a foothold in government with security, immigration services, and defense contracts. It also describes the political musings of co-founder Peter Thiel and CEO Alex Karp. However, it added: “Our view that Palantir’s increasing presence across the public sector represents an unacceptable point of weakness is not ideologically motivated or driven by concerns about the quality of their products. The government should retain the ability to pick and choose individual suppliers and safeguard against the risk of vendor lock-in and debilitating dependencies, particularly in areas of critical national importance such as healthcare and national security infrastructure.” Palantir won the £330 million Federated Data Platform (FDP) contract in November 2023 after a procurement process, which NHS England, the soon-to-be-defunct health quango, maintained was open and fair. The award followed £60 million in Covid-era NHS contracts awarded without competition. The committee recommended that the government use the February 2027 break clause in the FDP contract and either “develop an in-house replacement or seek an alternative developed by UK-owned and UK-based providers that are more compatible with UK values, and do not pursue either technical or contractual dependencies.” The Science Innovation and Technology Committee said dependency on a small number of suppliers, locked into repeated government contracts, was one of the factors holding up delivery of the broader vision for digital government. The others included over-reliance on legacy systems, the problem of digital sovereignty and over-hype by senior politicians and industry figures. Dame Chi Onwurah MP, Committee chair, said: “We welcome the government’s intentions to make the UK a ‘truly digital state,’ but it’s not clear how this will be delivered. Without a detailed and measurable plan, it risks falling short – but there’s still time to put this right. “A critical part of this transformation should include reducing the UK’s dependence on a small number of big US tech companies like Palantir. Vendor lock-in isn’t inevitable, and the current position leaves us seriously exposed. The UK can and should be aiming for technology sovereignty in critical parts of our public sector and supporting domestic alternatives through smarter procurement,” she said. The committee said the government needed to get its approach right before embarking on ambitious projects such as the digital ID scheme, expected to roll out by the end of the current Parliament. Without modernized digital infrastructure, digital ID will struggle to succeed, and to keep citizens’ data secure. “Only once the foundations of the UK’s digital infrastructure are secure, and public trust has been gained, should the government proceed with its planned digital ID. The success or failure of this project will be a defining test of its wider digital transformation ambitions," Onwurah said. ®

​Het kabinet Jetten zit vandaag honderd en één dagen in het zadel. We hebben ons onderzoekspanel gevraagd hoe het zit met hun vertrouwen in dit kabinet. En ook alvast hoe ze er morgen over denken.

“De cijfers laten nagenoeg hetzelfde beeld zien als toen kabinet Jetten er pas honderd dagen zat”, vertelt onderzoeksjournalist Hans Stoffer. Je merkt dat het vertrouwen van kiezers in de afgelopen vierentwintig uur nauwelijks is toegenomen.” Wel wil Stoffer benadrukken dat er ook geen scherpere daling in het vertrouwen te zien is.

Stoffer vervolgt: “Ook voor morgen staan er nog geen concrete resultaten op de planning. Hierdoor zal het vertrouwen, zo zien we in de cijfers, niet toenemen. Mocht het kabinet vandaag ineens met een verrassende doorbraak op een bepaald dossier komen, zal het vertrouwen mogelijk stijgen. Maar dat is nu nog niet te zien in de cijfers.”

Verschillende politici vinden dat dit kabinet moet aftreden. “Je ziet dat dit kabinet ook na honderd en één dagen nog steeds niet in staat is om de grote problemen in dit land op te lossen”, zegt Geert Wilders. “Wij hebben daarom voor de komende weken al twaalf moties van wantrouwen klaarliggen.” Ook op links klinkt er kritiek op het kabinet. PRO-leider Klaver: “Als we alvast vooruit kijken naar het vertrouwen op dag honderd en twee, zie ik niet heel veel aanknopingspunten om positiever over dit kabinet te denken. Wat ons betreft kunnen ze daar zelf hun conclusies aan verbinden.”

Bent u geïnteresseerd om deel te nemen aan ons onderzoekspanel? Klik dan op deze link, dan kunt u vanaf morgen meestemmen over het vertrouwen in kabinet Jetten vanaf dag 103.

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Progressief Nederland (PRO) wordt in het landelijk register opgenomen, wat betekent dat de naam gebruikt gaat worden bij Europese en Tweede Kamerverkiezingen. Sprake van misleiding van de kiezer is er niet „alleen omdat er ook aanduidingen van lokale Pro- en Progressief-partijen zijn”.

Vonneke Bonneke was er niet om vrienden te maken. In de ‘Anti Survival Show’ waren Michella Kox en Louisa Janssen ook niet op dat strand in Colombia om vrienden te maken, maar ze werden het toch maar mooi wél.

Op maandagochtend ligt recreatiegebied Het Rutbeek in Twente nog vol met de resten van een lang weekend feesten: vapes, pizzadozen, zonnebrandcrème en plastic bekers. Dan verschijnt Brutus, een tien meter lange stofzuiger die het terrein langzaam weer in een leeg weiland verandert.

Het kabinet geeft, tot op zekere hoogte, gehoor aan de wens van de Tweede Kamer om het demonstratierecht te verscherpen. Het verbod op gezichtsbedekkende kleding laat wel op zich wachten; ministers Pieter Heerma (Binnenlandse Zaken, CDA) en David van Weel (Justitie, VVD) willen in gesprek met de Kamer over alternatieven.

The Trump administration is moving to dismantle the National Science Foundation's $368 million Ocean Observatories Initiative, a network of more than 900 deep-sea instruments used to monitor ocean currents, marine ecosystems, carbon absorption, heat waves, fisheries, coastal flooding, and climate change. The NSF said it would send ships in June to begin the removal of the instruments anchored off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina, and an area between Greenland and Iceland known as the Irminger Sea. The New York Times reports: The ocean observation system began operating in 2016 and was expected to continue for 25 years. Jim Edson, a marine meteorologist who led the Ocean Observatories Initiative, called it "the world's most advanced continuously operating ocean observing systems." When it was first proposed, the science foundation said it was important to have a long-term presence at scientifically important sites in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Removing the instruments could take 15 months. Seismic instruments positioned around an active underwater volcano off Oregon will continue operating until 2028.

Each observation station consists of several moorings that secure long arrays of devices connected to wires. The devices measure ocean currents as well as chemical and biological conditions from the water's surface down thousands of feet. The instruments were hardened to resist the pressure of the deep ocean, corrosive seawater as well as marine plants and animals that can foul electronics. Remotely controlled robotic vehicles and gliders around the moorings collect and transmit data to research laboratories.

It cost $48 million annually to operate the network. The Trump administration repeatedly tried to shutter it, proposing to cut its funding by 80 percent in both 2025 and again in 2026. Congress pushed back, restoring the money. To try to reduce costs, managers turned off some of the instruments and collected less data, according to a December 2025 presentation about the observatories at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, a nonprofit organization of scientists. Still, the science foundation moved ahead to decommission the observatory network.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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BEEF CHO CHO: Marinated beef skewers, soy sake glaze, finished at the table over a flaming hibachi

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Veel gedoe deze week in Bleiswijk, of eigenlijk moeten we zeggen BLEISWIJKISTAN dan wel Ble'ish al-Wyk, omdat de straatnamencommissie is teruggekrabbeld toen bleek dat veel mensen het belachelijk vonden om drie nieuwe straten Arabische namen te geven. Omdat er wadi's in de straten worden aangelegd (Water Afvoer Drainage en Infiltratie, houdt meer vocht vast dan de enkels van uw schoonmoeder maar giet het daarna ook weer in de grond, heeft behalve de naam niet veel met het Midden-Oosten van doen) vonden ze het leuk om de boel te vernoemen naar wadi's (rivierdalen) in Verweggistan, te weten Wadi Musa, Wadi Rum en Wadi Damm. Begrijpelijke ophef want wtf het is hier potverredomme NEDERLAND, hoewel we in de krant lezen dat de Bleiswijkers vooral VERDEELD zijn. (De AD-verslaggever kwam 1 vrouw op een fiets tegen die vond het allemaal wel meeviel.) Om Bleiswijk en daarmee Nederland weer te verenigen doen wij graag een beroep op u, verbinder die u bent, om de straatnamencommissie te adviseren over puur HOLLANDSCHE alternatieven. Dus:

The "modern" insurance business, which in the context of Berlin we can date to the foundation of the Berliner Feuersozietät, was founded on a different approach. Risks such as fire—and fire it would be exclusively for some time—were considered to be collective, and they were to be borne collectively. The inauguration of the Feuersozietät can thus be equally conceived as the implementation of a new way of thinking, of a "risk society" (Risikogemeinschaft) based on secular empathy and a shared financial pool.

Ook dit jaar weer een mooie offspring van de Ateliers in Amsterdam, zoals elk jaar luchtige, grote presentaties waarin te zien is dat de residenten met het gebouw hebben geleefd. Geen white cube presentaties maar [Meer...]