Organizing a team of editors, developers, and designers is never a simple task. Trying to keep track of what each of them is doing on your WordPress site can seem all but impossible. What if someone makes a mistake and your entire website goes down? You won’t know what happened, who did it or likely have any way of rolling back without losing days or weeks of work. That is, unless you use version control. WordPress version control allows you to track everyone’s individual actions and changes on your site. It also allows you to store previous versions of each file that you can revert to at any time. Should something go wrong, you now have an undo button and a comprehensive log to help you figure out what happened and get back on track. Want to try out this amazing resource for yourself? We’ll show you some great plugins for setting up WordPress version control and teach you how to use them effectively. Let’s go. What is WordPress Version Control? In the world of software development, version control tools are a popular choice to track changes to documents and files. Used by teams small and large, it provides a way to keep up with every modification made to a file or any part of the code. Development teams that don’t use version control software will quickly run into issues. Concurrent changes might vanish or mistakes happen that require painstakingly combing through the code to fix. They might also struggle to branch out existing code to test new ideas or merge changes. It also becomes impossible to keep an eye on everyone’s individual contributions. But version control isn’t just for software projects; it can also apply to a CMS like WordPress. In this case, it can track changes to core files, modifications to posts and pages, and plugin and theme updates. You can also deploy those changes to WordPress without manually uploading them via FTP. And if anyone makes a mistake or touches something they weren’t supposed to, all you have to do is revert that change, and your site should be back to normal. It’s like a more intricate version of site-wide backups . By default, WordPress does come with a pretty robust version control system for posts and pages. That will do if you’re only bringing on editors and content writers. However, if your team consists of developers, designers, admins, or anyone with heightened privileges, the simple post revisions system won’t be enough. To track and roll back changes for files, databases, site updates, plugins and themes, you’re going to need something more. Why Use Version Control? You might say that you’d never hire a developer you don’t trust, or that you can manage what everyone does without any special software. Yet, mistakes can happen, employees can get upset and decide to take down your site on the way out. In addition, even small teams can become just too much to keep track of. Version control software safeguards against problems like these. It lets you see exactly where and when changes happened, and revert them before too much harm is done. Even in less serious situations, sometimes you may just decide that a recent change isn’t to your liking. Instead of diving back into your site files, you can just click “roll back”. No need to upload anything by hand. Lastly, it just makes it easier to work in teams. Being able to see a list of changes and who made them is more beneficial than you might think. This also applies if you’re working solo. Instantly revert any mistakes you made, view past versions of old files, and easily pick up where you left off. It makes life so much easier. Learning Git and Using it with WordPress
While other version control systems exist, a majority is based around Git. It’s primarily a tool for programmers, but most WordPress version control plugins rely on it as well. Git is quite simple and fairly easy to get the hang of once you dive into it. It’s also the most-used system by far, so it’s definitely what you want to put time into learning. Also, GitHub is a major host for Git-based projects, including WordPress itself – and it boasts over 38 million users . Consequently, by learning Git, you also get access to a reliable repository to sort and track changes to your project. With that said, Git can be pretty confusing at first. For that reason, here are some helpful resources to help you get the hang of things. How To Use Git For WordPress Development — Check out our beginner tutorial that walks you through the entire configuration of Git for WordPress. Git Handbook — Where better to learn Git basics than from GitHub itself? Once you’re done reading, you should also try their Hello World project to test you knowledge. git – the simple guide — This simple guide by Harvard lays out the basics in terms anyone can understand. Backlog Git Tutorial — This set of tutorials has a friendly, easy-to-read design and covers several Git-related topics across multiple skill levels. An Intro to Git and GitHub for Beginners — Made for beginners, this guide walks you through Git’s major features and helps you get the hang of GitHub. The Best WordPress Version Control Software
Once you’ve got a pretty good grasp on Git, you’re just about ready to try out WordPress version control software. There are quite a few top contenders out there, each with their own unique set of features. You will find them below. Note, however, that the server requirements of Git-based software can be quite finicky. Make sure to check the documentation of each plugin to see their requirements, and ensure that your host meets them. Sadly, shared hosting doesn’t usually have the necessary permissions for these plugins to work. However, there are a few alternatives below that are more lenient. VersionPress is perhaps the most well-known version control software for WordPress. It brings the full functionality of Git to WordPress – and does it all for free. The big thing here is that it tracks not just file changes, but database edits as well. Beyond that, it integrates with GitHub, automatically commits any changes, and can smush whole snapshots of your site into just a few megabytes. It’s fast, it’s efficient, and it does its job well. The one major downside to VersionPress: it’s still in development, and not production-ready . While you can use it on your small, simple site without the likelihood of much going wrong, there are no guarantees. There’s always a chance your database could be corrupted if you don’t configure it correctly. In any case, it’s good to keep separate backups of your database too. VersionPress is incompatible with most plugins that manipulate the database, so keep an eye out for that. It also doesn’t work with hosts that don’t have Git installed or have tight security restrictions. If these downsides aren’t a deal-breaker for you, the free plugin is definitely worth a try. Built for developers and small teams, Revisr comes with a simple, easy-to-use interface. It highlights modifications within files and simplifies difficult processes like switching branches or pulling data from repositories into just a few buttons. There’s also some documentation to help you get set up. With Revisr, it’s easy to test out changes and quickly revert them if something goes wrong. Because of its simplicity, the service is probably not suitable for huge teams of developers. However, it’ll work very well if it’s just you or a handful of others. The bad news: as of 2020, it hasn’t been updated in over a year, and there’s no word on what will happen in the future. The whole tool is the work of just a single person and, therefore, slower development doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gone forever. But if you’re looking for something a little bigger and more actively maintained, Revisr may not be suitable. Reverting any theme or plugin to a previous version is usually fairly annoying. You have to go hunt down the previous version, then manually upload and install it. This can cause a lot of downtime. WP Rollback has a solution for that. The plugin lets you revert to a previous state in just a few clicks. It connects right to the WordPress repository and can pull any publicly available version of a theme or plugin right to your site. This isn’t a traditional version control system and only covers plugins and themes. Yet, it does provide you with a quick undo button if things go wrong. Made to simplify development, Gitium tracks everything done to your site, from removals to plugin/theme changes as well as any code edits. Its main focus is continuous deployment, or the ability to push code changes right to the live site without FTP. Like VersionPress, it has some special server requirements. You’ll of course need a host that uses Git on its servers, and the proc_open PHP function must be enabled. If you need help setting up Gitium, its documentation will help you get started. The great thing about Gitium is that, unlike VersionPress, it claims to be suitable for use in production environments. The downside: it doesn’t work on multisite. If you need a stable version control plugin that won’t corrupt your database, give this one a try. It’s no secret that team development in WordPress is hard. Git can help to share and collaborate on code, but pushing your themes, plugins, and code changes to an actual website eats up a lot of time. With WP Pusher, you can deploy right from Git to WordPress without the need to manually copy files over. It supports GitHub as well as Bitbucket and GitLab. There are also quite a few other features that make it stand out. For one, it doesn’t require Git on your hosting server. WP Pusher also works on multisite, and is entirely free as long as you use public (open source) repositories. What if you’re creating client projects that can’t be open source? You’ll need to purchase one of the yearly plans. The lowest one costs $99 per year and lets you deploy to up to five client sites. There are also plans that go up to a hundred. If you work on themes, plugins, or in web development environments and constantly struggle to get your code somewhere you can test it, WP Pusher is the solution for you. While this isn’t a traditional Git-based version control plugin, it performs a similar function in a much simpler interface. Activity Log tracks every action on your site, including the IP and profile of who did it and when. This lets you keep an eye on both your users and anyone who has admin access to your site. The plugin tracks everything from post and page creation/deletion, tags, categories, and taxonomies, as well as user actions and setting/menu changes within the admin. All of it right in the WordPress dashboard. It’s not suitable if you’re looking for a more development-focused plugin with features like continuous deployment and rollbacks. However, if all you want to do is track what happens, this plugin can be enough. You might also want to check out the Simple History plugin. It works similarly to Activity Log, providing version history of almost every WordPress action possible right in the dashboard. It also has an API you can use to code and track custom events. Track and Roll Back Any Change to Your Site
Especially when you’re dealing with code and function files, one little mistake can bring your whole website crashing down. Besides backups, a version control system can save you a lot of grief. Being able to restore the changes made and know who and what caused a mistake is a huge blessing. This is especially true when running a large website with several editors. There are several well-known WordPress version control plugins, each of them providing their own unique features. We have listed the pros and cons above so you can choose the most suitable solution. Once you have wrapped your head around Git,  these plugins allow you to make changes to your site with confidence. Were you ever in a situation where version control saved the day? Share your story in the comments below! Author

WordPress Version Control – Why and How to Use It (+Plugins!)

Mit ordentlicher Versionskontr olle kann WordPress übers Wasser gehen. (Foto: Pixabay)
24.09.2016, 16.00 Uhr
Du kennst WordPress . Und du kennst Git . Letzteres aber eher vom Hörensagen oder Schwärmereien unter Kollegen? Wir zeigen dir, was das ist und wie du es einfach mit WordPress verwendest. WordPress: Der Status Quo
Das beliebteste CMS der Welt ist schnell installiert und kann sehr unkompliziert betrieben werden. Updates des Funktionskerns finden, wenn du willst, automatisch statt. Nur gravierende Neuerungen musst du manuell autorisieren. Themes und Plugins können ebenfalls automatisch, mindestens semi-automatisch aktualisiert werden. Der Haken: Alles passiert am offenen Herzen. Natürlich schickt WordPress sich während Updates und Installationen automatisch in den Wartungsmodus, der Besucher für den Zeitraum der Aktualisierung außen vor hält. Was aber, wenn bei diesen Vorgängen etwas schief geht? Deine WordPress-Website ist dann im schlimmsten Falle nicht erreichbar. Das kann dich teuer zu stehen kommen. Damit dir WordPress nicht absäuft, integriere es mit Git. (Foto: Pixabay)
Besser wäre es also, Updates und Installationen jeder Art erstmal testen zu können, um sie im Problemfalle selektiv wieder rückgängig machen zu können. In der Software-Entwicklung gibt es dafür seit langer Zeit die sogenannten Versionskontrollsysteme. Solche Systeme verzeichnen jede Änderung an bestehendem Code als neuen Zustand und speichern ihn separat ab. Man kann also zu jedem Zeitpunkt zu jedem beliebigen früheren Entwicklungsstand zurück. Am einfachsten stellst du dir diese Vorgehensweise als simples Backup and Restore vor, wobei Versionskontrollsysteme deutlich mehr leisten als diesen vergleichsweise simplen Vorgang. Auch in WordPress gibt es seit Jahren ein Versionskontrollsystem. Dieses bezieht sich jedoch ausschließlich auf den Bereich der Beiträge. Wie du weißt, legt WordPress, während du einen Beitrag schreibst, in definierbaren Abständen eine definierbare Anzahl an Sicherungskopien, sogenannte Revisionen, an. Tritt ein Problem auf, kannst du eine ältere Version des Beitrags aufrufen und wiederherstellen. Ebenso ist es möglich, zwei Versionen miteinander zu vergleichen, um letztlich zu entscheiden, welche nun die öffentlich sichtbare Repräsentation sein soll. In allen anderen Bereichen von WordPress fehlt ein solches System. Einzelkämpfer behelfen sich seit langer Zeit schon damit, lokale Testumgebungen vorzuhalten, auf denen die identischen Installationen zu Bearbeitungszwecken vorgehalten werden. Dort schraubst du am Theme und schaust, ob es funktioniert und wie es aussieht. Dort installierst du ein neues Plugin und prüfst, ob es zu den anderen eingesetzten kompatibel ist. Erst, wenn alles zur Zufriedenheit aussieht und funktioniert, lädst du die Änderungen auf die Live-Website hoch. Aber auch das ist kein Versionskontrollsystem. Denn alle Änderungen, die du lokal vorgenommen hast, fanden ebenfalls am offenen Herzen statt. Du hast eine bestehende Installation geändert – nur befand sie sich eben nicht online und für Gäste zugänglich, sondern offline und nur für dich sichtbar. WordPress und Git: Wozu soll das gut sein? Versionskontrollsysteme sind die einzige Möglichkeit, die Risiken aus der Arbeit an Software-Projekten nahezu vollständig zu eliminieren. Würdest du mit einem solchen arbeiten, dann würden die Änderungen, die du an der WordPress-Installation vornimmst, im Detail getrackt und gesichert. Du hättest zu jedem Zeitpunkt die Möglichkeit, einen älteren Zustand wieder herzustellen und das auch noch selektiv, bezogen auf ein einzelnes Thema. Es würde also nicht ein gesamter Zustand deiner Website zum Zeitpunkt X wieder aktiviert, sondern nur das, was einen bestimmten Arbeitsschritt betrifft. Schau dir einfach die Revisionshistorie für deine Beiträge an. Genauso würde es für alle Aspekte deiner WordPress-Installation funktionieren. Damit dürfte dir augenblicklich klar sein, wofür das gut ist. Du erhältst erstmalig die volle Kontrolle über das CMS, und brauchst keine Angst zu haben, etwas kaputt zu konfigurieren oder zu coden. Jede Änderung kannst du jederzeit rückgängig machen. Wenn du dir nun noch vorstellst, es gäbe weitere Personen, die an deiner Website arbeiten, etwa ein ganzes Designteam, so erkennst du, dass es ohne Versionskontrolle gar nicht mehr geht. In der Tat spielen Versionskontrollsysteme wie Git ihre maximalen Vorteile da aus, wo mehrere Personen an ein- und demselben Projekt arbeiten und das noch gleichzeitig. Das Kontrollsystem kümmert sich vollständig um alle Aspekte der Kollaboration. Es führt sogar zeitgleich getätigte Änderungen an Dateien konfliktfrei zusammen oder weist zumindest deutlich auf bestehende Konflikte und deren Lösungsmöglichkeiten hin. Das bekannteste und beliebteste Versionskontrollsystem heißt Git und ist besonders wegen der Plattform GitHub , die lediglich eine der vielen Möglichkeiten zum Git-Hosting darstellt, in aller Munde. Ich kenne kaum ein Open-Source-Projekt, das nicht auf Github gehostet wird. GitHub: Landing Page. (Screenshot: t3n)
Wenn du dich ein wenig mit Git auseinandersetzt, stellst du schnell fest, dass es sich nicht eben um eine intuitive Lösung handelt. WordPress und Git: einfaches Zusammenspiel
Git ist ein Kommandozeilentool und, wie bei allen dieser Tools, kann von schneller Erlernbarkeit nicht die Rede sein. Wenn du die Vorteile von Git ausschließlich im Zusammenspiel mit WordPress nutzen möchtest, gibt es ein paar Lösungen, die du dir anschauen solltest, bevor du einen 2-Tage-Kurs in Git belegst. Einen Hochgeschwindigkeitsüberblick kannst du dir immerhin mit Try Git verschaffen. Dieser Kurzkurs verbraucht nur 15 Minuten deiner Zeit. Willst du es ganz genau wissen, kannst du das E-Book Pro Git mit runden 500 Seiten Stärke hier kostenlos lesen . VersionPress: die umfassendste Git-Lösung für WordPress
VersionPress ist ein kostenloses Open-Source-Plugin, das Versionskontrolle auf Basis von Git in deine WordPress-Installation integriert. Die Lösung ist sehr weitreichend und bietet echten Git-Profis sogar die Nutzung per Kommandozeile, während sie Nicht-Gitprofis die Verwendung per grafischer Benutzeroberfläche erlaubt. VersionPress, die umfassendste Verbindung zwischen WordPress und Git. (Screenshot: t3n)
VersionPress kümmert sich, neben der Versionskontrolle von Ordnern und Dateien und deren Inhalten, sogar um die Versionierung der WordPress-Datenbank. Dazu ist kein anderes mir bekanntes System in der Lage. Außerdem bietet VersionPress das sogenannte Staging, also das Klonen kompletter Installationen. Wer nur letztere Funktionalität sucht, sollte  diesen Beitrag des Kollegen Andreas Hecht auf Dr. Web lesen. Dort stellt er das Plugin WP-Staging im Detail vor. VersionPress trackt alle Änderungen, die du an deiner WordPress-Website vornimmst und bietet dir in einer übersichtlichen Liste den entsprechenden Zugriff darauf. Jede getrackte Änderung ist mit einem Undo-Button versehen. Du klickst also Undo und deine Änderung wird rückgängig gemacht. In der Zwischenzeit getätigte weitere Änderungen, etwa neue Beiträge oder Seiten sind von dem Vorgang nicht betroffen, werden also nicht etwa ebenfalls rückgängig gemacht. Da VersionPress voll auf Git basiert, kannst du das entsprechende Repository auch mit einem externen Git-Client verwalten, ohne die Vorteile der Lösung zu verlieren. Du wirst an verschiedenen Stellen auf die Info stoßen, dass es sich bei VersionPress um eine Art Vorversion handelt, da es sich in einer Phase früher Verfügbarkeit (Early Access Phase) befindet. Diese Information ist seit März 2016 überholt. Seither wird VersionPress unter Open-Source-Lizenz fortentwickelt. Dennoch ist Vorsicht geboten, da die Arbeitsweise des Plugins überaus komplex ist und immer unerwünschte Funktionskonflikte, vor allem mit sonstigen Plugins möglich sind. Generell gilt daher, dass du zusätzlich eine tragfähige Backup-Strategie brauchst. Ich setze in diesen Fällen auf VaultPress. Die Lösung kommt aus dem Hause Automattic und ist preislich kaum des Nachdenkens wert, ein echter No-Brainer. Bedenke: Du benötigst Git auf deinem Server. Du kannst also nicht einfach VersionPress installieren und erwarten, dass alles einfach funktioniert. WP Pusher: Git für Themes und Plugins
Willst du nur Themes und Plugins verwalten, dann reicht eine kleinere Lösung. Es bietet sich WP Pusher an. WP Pusher arbeitet mit GitHub und Bitbucket zusammen. Das Plugin ist in der Lage, Änderungen direkt von diesen Plattformen auf deinen Webserver zu bringen und dort in Effekt zu setzen. Das kann sogar vollautomatisch erfolgen. Du benötigst keinen eigenen Git-Server neben GitHub oder Bitbucket. Damit kannst du WP Pusher auf jedem Webspace einsetzen. WP Pusher: Kein Git, nur GitHub erforderlich. (GIF: WP Pusher)
WP Pusher ist allerdings nicht kostenlos, sondern kostet ab 39 Dollar pro Jahr. Gitium: Alternative für das Deployment von Plugins und Themes
Gitium von Presslabs kümmert sich um die gleiche Problemstellung wie WP Pusher. Gitium kommt mit einem Vor-, sowie einem Nachteil. Der Vorteil gegenüber WP Pusher ist, dass Gitium unter GPL-Lizenz kostenlos, also Open Source ist, während WP Pusher eine kostenpflichtige Lösung bietet. Gitium: OPen Source, aber nur mit Git auf dem Server verwendbar. (Screenshot: t3n)
Der Nachteil besteht darin, dass Gitium einen eigenen Git-Server voraussetzt, während WP Pusher lediglich Github oder Bitbucket benötigt. Programmierer seit 1987, Vater seit 1995, Webentwickler seit 1998,…
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WordPress und Git: Der leichte Einstieg

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Pavel Curda
Here is a list of some interesting deals from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), seen in October. Often overlooked by big US and Western European investors, the region offers many good deals, at much cheaper valuations compared to the US market. South African-based global internet and media company, Naspers announced a US$1.2bn transaction to become the largest shareholder in Avito, the leading online classifieds platform in Russia. Naspers initially invested in Avito, Russia’s largest generalist classifieds platform, in 2013. Since then the company successfully expanded into classifieds verticals. Estonian Funderbeam , the subscription service for startup and investor research, has raised €655k  from angel investors and 3TS Capital Partners, taking the company to €1.75m in total funding. This is the company’s final seed round as it builds the world’s startup marketplace based on blockchain technology. Funderbeam also participated in the pitch competition of this year’s EU-Startups Conference. Russian VC fund Maxfield Capital has invested £300,000 in British property startup eMoov. Property start-up eMoov raised £2.6m in an oversubscribed crowdfunding round via Crowdcube ; the largest ever investment in a property tech (proptech) company on the equity-based platform. 795 investors backed the campaign, taking it over its initial target of £1m, with backers including venture capital firms Episode 1 Ventures, and Startive Ventures, alongside start-up accelerator Seedcamp. Launched in 2010, eMoov claims to be one of the UK’s most successful online estate agencies selling properties for fees of £595 +VAT and has sold over 4,500 properties through its site since launch. Czech VersionPress  raised $400,000 in funding from Credo Ventures. VersionPress is a next-generation WordPress admin & backup tool that is powered by Git. The tool enables a user to undo anything (including database changes), clone & merge sites and maintain efficient backups – all with unmatched simplicity. Lithuania might be a small country somewhere in the Eastern Europe, but it has already established its name in the startup scene. Big names like  Vinted ,  Pixelmator or  GetJar already raised more money than an average person earns in his or her lifetime – And these companies have gotten a lot of coverage in the international media. ArcticStartup showed fresh young Lithuanian companies which have great potential in becoming the country’s next unicorns. Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov  has invested “$100 million or more” in Virtus.pro, a popular local e-sports platform. The investment will be used by Virtus.pro to launch new tournaments, support new games, create media channels and build new esports arenas,  says Anton Cherepennikov , co-owner of the Russian organisation. This entry was posted in Acquisitions , Czech-Startups , Estonia-Startups , Funding , Lithuania-Startups and tagged Funderbeam , VersionPress , Virtus.pro . Bookmark the permalink . Leave a Reply
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Top deals seen in Central and Eastern Europe in October

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Analytics Startup SimilarWeb Raises $25M At $400M Valuation, Wants To Be A Better Alexa
Anybody who has ran or developed a WordPress-powered site, be it a humble blog or something more complex, knows that it’s pretty easy to make undesirable changes. This can be either content-related or a change to the WordPress theme or plugin you’re running. While backing up is crucial, a primitive backup doesn’t always let you roll back to the exact point where everything was fine. Enter VersionPress , a Prague-based startup that offers version control for WordPress. The company essentially wants to create an ‘undo button’ for changes you make to a WordPress site, with software built on top of Git, the popular open source version control system. To help further develop its offering, VersionPress has picked up $400,000 backing from Prague’s Credo Ventures . “WordPress is a great publishing platform but has certain drawbacks that affect almost any website powered by it,” VersionPress founder Borek Bernard tells TechCrunch. “One example is that if something breaks a site, be it a failed update or a human mistake, there is no easy way back. It’s like if MS Office had all the rich functionality but no undo button. It’s hard to imagine but WordPress is like that today, which we aim to fix.”
Calling itself ‘WordPress meets Git’, VersionPress, which is currently running a paid-for Early Access Program, aims to offer full version control for the popular blogging/CMS platform. Unlike incremental backups, no matter how often you run them, proper versioning means you can revert changes at any time. “The nice thing about VersionPress is that we do not have a single feature in mind; instead, we focus on the core problem which is versioning,” adds Bernard .”You can find it everywhere today, from Wikipedia to Google Docs to virtually every software project in the world, and it revolutionized many of the areas it touched. VersionPress is the first tool to bring it properly to the world of WordPress, including files and the database (the latter being historically the biggest challenge).”
More “technically exciting”, he says, is that VersionPress isn’t re-inventing the versioning wheel but instead relies on Git, “a world-class system” used by some of the biggest software projects in the world, citing the Linux kernel, Twitter, and Facebook as examples. This means that VersionPress integrates with advanced workflows for teamwork, staging — that is testing site changes before they go live — and many other available tools built to run on Git. 0

VersionPress Picks Up Backing From Credo Ventures For ‘WordPress Meets Git’ Solution

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VersionPress Picks Up Backing From Credo Ventures For ‘WordPress Meets Git’ Solution
As we’ve recently pointed out, here on TC, T&Cs suck . But what sucks even more than impenetrable, multi-clause legalize that no one reads is the fact these unlovely documents can change without warning — effectively requiring users of the services they govern to engage in a perpetual reading to ensure they are abreast of changes. Aka: “These conditions may change without prior notice, so we recommend you to consult them regularly.”
In an attempt to circumvent this slippery, Catch-22 behavior, a team of law specialists and engineers based in Spain has put together an online tracker for T&Cs changes  — to help flag up when small print shifts, and help users figure out when to take notice of a particular update (and maybe even read the relevant chunks of text). The free tracker  does this by comparing the most recent version of legal texts with the prior version, running a comparison every 12 hours to pick up changes regularly. It then lists (and dates) these changes, as well as color-coding their significance (including flagging up whether they have been communicated to users). It also displays the percentage of text that has changed since the last update. Document changes are reviewed by “someone with legal knowledge” prior to publishing on the site — so it’s not just a tech-powered text comparison service, according to the team, but rather involves a layer of human expertise to determine how significant a T&Cs update is. The tracker monitors changes in Terms of Use, Privacy Policies, Cookie Notices and multiple other legal texts that are generally badged as ‘terms and conditions’. Old and new T&Cs are presented side by side for comparison. Text that has been added to the new T&Cs is highlighted in green. Text that’s been deleted is highlighted in red (on the old T&Cs). It’s currently keeping tabs on some 5,600+ services and 6,700+ legal documents (not all of these are available in English, with Spanish the secondary default if there’s no English version) — and says there have been just under 130 changes to T&Cs of the businesses it’s been monitoring in the past week. As well as browsing recent changes, users can search for — and subscribe to — specific companies to keep track of how their T&Cs evolve. Recent changes flagged up by the tracker include genetic testing service 23andMe adding a suggestion for users to consult a genetic counselor prior to testing to  its T&Cs ; specifying percentages for when its labs aren’t able to process a sample (up to 3% of the time) or a second sample (up to 0.35% of the time); and noting that its research arm may be “sponsored by, conducted on behalf of, or in collaboration with third parties, such as non-profit foundations, academic institutions or pharmaceutical companies”. While a recent erasure from TC parent AOL’s Terms of Service document removes explicit details notice that users signing up to its service and providing a mobile or landline telephone number are consenting to giving AOL the ability to use autodialed and prerecorded messages to contact them. A further deleted clause specifies that users are consenting to receiving SMS/text messages to their number, and provided information on how to opt out. Extensive changes to Apple’s “Commitment to Customer Privacy” document  are also recorded by the tracker — including significant wording shifts (in line with Apple recently overhauling how it presents privacy info to users ), and shifting details such as the proportion of Apple users where data has been disclosed due to a government request: less than 0.00571%” has been updated to “less than 0.00673%” in the most recent update. Jorge Morell Ramos, one of the Mallorca-based team behind the tracker, notes that many companies are making (even more) regular changes to privacy policies in light of the European Court of Justice invalidating the U.S.-Europe data-sharing Safe Harbor agreement earlier this month. He says the tracker is one of multiple tech-law based projects the team is working on in its legal lab . They also want to develop an API for the tracker to get the information circulating more widely. The wider idea behind the lab is to develop legal tools and products to try to shake up a sector that’s pretty set in its ways, he adds. 0

T&Cs Change Tracker Puts Shifting Small-Print In The Spotlight

Seed VC

VersionPress is a company that focuses on providing Git integration for version control in WordPress. The company offers a plugin that tracks changes in WordPress sites using Git, including features like an undo button, branching and merging, and backups. VersionPress serves the web development community by providing tools for collaboration and site management. It is based in Prague, Czech Republic.

Date	10/26/2015
Round	Seed VC
Amount	$0.4M
Investors	Credo
Valuation	$XXM
Revenue	0 FY undefined
Sources	1

First funding	10/26/2015
Last Funding	10/26/2015
Investor	Credo
Rounds	1 Seed VC
Board Seats
Type	Venture Capital
Location	Czech Republic

How VCs Use CB Insights

Professional Services

Platform Overview

VersionPress

Total Raised

Investors Count

Funding, Valuation & Revenue

VersionPress Investors