Tax prep sw selling personal data

[MichaelB]

The Verge reports that some tax preparation sw has captured and sold to personal and financial data to Facebook. Among the companies mentioned are H&R Block, Tax Act, Tax Slayer. The article is here https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/22/23471842/facebook-hr-block-taxact-taxslayer-info-sharing

Two snippets

The data, sent through widely used code called the Meta Pixel, includes not only information like names and email addresses but often even more detailed information, including data on users’ income, filing status, refund amounts, and dependents’ college scholarship amounts.

When users sign up to file their taxes with the popular service TaxAct, for example, they’re asked to provide personal information to calculate their returns, including how much money they make and their investments. A pixel on TaxAct’s website then sent some of that data to Facebook, including users’ filing status, their adjusted gross income, and the amount of their refund, according to a review by The Markup. Income was rounded to the nearest thousand and refunds to the nearest hundred. The pixel also sent the names of dependents in an obfuscated — but generally reversible — format.

I was surprised by this and thought there were stronger privacy agreements in place.

 

[W2R]

The Verge reports that some tax preparation sw has captured and sold to personal and financial data to Facebook. Among the companies mentioned are H&R Block, Tax Act, Tax Slayer. The article is here https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/22/23471842/facebook-hr-block-taxact-taxslayer-info-sharing

Two snippets





I was surprised by this and thought there were stronger privacy agreements in place.

That's shocking! I hope TurboTax doesn't sell my data.

Edited to add: From the article you quoted,

Rick Heineman, a spokesperson for Intuit, said the company’s pixel “does not track, gather, or share information that users enter in TurboTax while filing their taxes,” although Intuit “may share some non-tax-return information, such as username, with marketing partners to deliver a better customer experience,” like not showing Intuit ads on Facebook to people who have accounts already.

So, a least Turbotax has some limits.

 

[niven]

Since Meta Pixel is javascript, I assume this only applies to the web version of H&R Block. Another reason I'm glad I get the desktop software.

 

[audreyh1]

I was wondering - if it’s the web based “free” tax software you have to realize that you are the product.

 

[JoeWras]

Having worked in tech and being behind some of this nonsense, I feel like Oppenheimer and the bomb. "I am become death." OK, maybe too dramatic. More like, "I helped spread disease." Oh, so much disease I helped enable. This is just crap.

Stuff like this is one reason I don't volunteer for anything tech, and I eschew my previous profession. I'm off facebook and twitter. I still share with you and Social Knowledge though.

 

[target2019]

Facebook is Listening

This is an interesting development. Evidently tax prep companies have been sending your private information to Facebook.

It's the Meta Pixel again.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/22/23471842/facebook-hr-block-taxact-taxslayer-info-sharing

The article is long and includes technical details, and I'm just now trying to parse and decipher it.

 

[Montecfo]

Another great reason to use the desktop version and avoid those "free" sites.

 

[gauss]

The Verge reports that some tax preparation sw has captured and sold to personal and financial data to Facebook. Among the companies mentioned are H&R Block, Tax Act, Tax Slayer. The article is here https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/22/23471842/facebook-hr-block-taxact-taxslayer-info-sharing

Two snippets





I was surprised by this and thought there were stronger privacy agreements in place.

They aren't allowed to disclose data to 3rd parties without your consent.

I could cite the law if motivated. (We ran into this issue at our volunteer tax prep site a few years ago. But at the end of the day I knew that it would not happen because of the Federal law prohibiting it)

Now if the software has a button that gives consent which is checked by default and remains checked, then they would be covered.

edit:
Relevant Regulation
§ 301.7216-1 Penalty for disclosure or use of tax return information.
(a) In general. Section 7216(a) prescribes a criminal penalty for tax return preparers who knowingly or recklessly disclose or use tax return information for a purpose other than preparing a tax return. A violation of section 7216 is a misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of up to one year imprisonment or a fine of not more than $1,000, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/301.7216-1

If memory serves, the penalty is per return disclosed without consent.

-gauss

 

[COcheesehead]

I was wondering - if it’s the web based “free” tax software you have to realize that you are the product.

+1

 

[RobbieB]

Yup, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

I'll stick with TT and pay for it as always.

 

[jazz4cash]

I was wondering - if it’s the web based “free” tax software you have to realize that you are the product.

This. I am ALWAYS surprised every year how much energy is devoted here on free or cheap tax software. I'm only interested in the desktop version but the posters don't usually mention which version they are talking about. I only pay $20-30 for HRB and we have 3 family members filing returns. Cheap.

 

[Aerides]

There is another thread already on this subject/link, so I'll close this one for now:

https://www.early-retirement.org/fo...selling-personal-data-116023.html#post2857568

 

[aja8888]

Intuit “may share some non-tax-return information, such as username, with marketing partners to deliver a better customer experience,”

Yeah, delivering a better customer experience by selling your personal information. Wow!

 

[jollystomper]

Rick Heineman, a spokesperson for Intuit, said the company’s pixel “does not track, gather, or share information that users enter in TurboTax while filing their taxes,” although Intuit “may share some non-tax-return information, such as username, with marketing partners to deliver a better customer experience,” like not showing Intuit ads on Facebook to people who have accounts already.

Did he say this with a straight face?

Yeah, we will not show adds of Facebook to people who have accounts already. We will just let our marketing partners flood them with ads for their products, since they have accounts with us.

 

[COcheesehead]

Yeah, delivering a better customer experience by selling your personal information. Wow!

Username

Can you imagine if there was a book with your name, phone number and address in it with advertising and it was FREE to anyone?

Welcome to the phonebook.

 

[aja8888]

Username

Can you imagine if there was a book with your name, phone number and address in it with advertising and it was FREE to anyone?

Welcome to the phonebook.

I haven't seen a paper phone book in 20 years. And besides, all the numbers in those were dial up lines. And a good portion of the names and numbers were of dead people and out of service numbers.

 

[zinger1457]

Not sure why one would think only the 'free' versions are involved, seems like there would be a lot more interest from these companies for the higher income folks that use the 'paid' version.

 

[COcheesehead]

I haven't seen a paper phone book in 20 years. And besides, all the numbers in those were dial up lines. And a good portion of the names and numbers were of dead people and out of service numbers.

I think you missed my point. We had far more information exposed about us in years past. Yet we get all bent out of shape about someone serving up an ad on FB that may actually appeal to us.

 

[audreyh1]

Not sure why one would think only the 'free' versions are involved, seems like there would be a lot more interest from these companies for the higher income folks that use the 'paid' version.

I guess it’s actually the web-based versions. I suppose some of those are not free.

 

[jimbee]

That's shocking! I hope TurboTax doesn't sell my data.

Edited to add: From the article you quoted,
So, a least Turbotax has some limits.

Intuit is as responsible in this as Facebook is. Their lobbying is a major reason we have such a messed up filing system.

 

[jollystomper]

Not sure why one would think only the 'free' versions are involved, seems like there would be a lot more interest from these companies for the higher income folks that use the 'paid' version.

They tend to focus on "quantity", not "quality" .

 

[CaptTom]

Getting back to the technology, it appears from my reading that the "Meta Pixel" implementation is a block of Java code which the host (in this discussion, tax prep software companies) put on their web pages. This code is provided by Meta (Facebook) servers. A couple of explanations I read say that the code actually scans the page looking for tidbits it would like to scoop up. The tax software company may not even know what this code is passing back to Meta's servers.

Everyone's motivations are clear here. The tax software companies get tracking information about how their web sites are being used. Meta gets to harvest more personal data. Users are either oblivious or just don't care.

There's no magic here. The idea of a third-party tracking pixel is not new. What I didn't realize was that sites are now adding whole blocks of third-party code which does things even they don't seem to know about.

 

[jollystomper]

I think you missed my point. We had far more information exposed about us in years past. Yet we get all bent out of shape about someone serving up an ad on FB that may actually appeal to us.

I would disagree. The information in a phone book is far less than what information we have exposed to us today. In addition, with the phone book it was very difficult to associate the wrong information with a person, while it is very common today. ALso, if you think FB is using the data *only* to serve up ads that appeal to us (and frankly most people do not want to deal with ads even if they do appeal to us), think again

Getting back to the technology, it appears from my reading that the "Meta Pixel" implementation is a block of Java code which the host (in this discussion, tax prep software companies) put on their web pages. This code is provided by Meta (Facebook) servers. A couple of explanations I read say that the code actually scans the page looking for tidbits it would like to scoop up. The tax software company may not even know what this code is passing back to Meta's servers.

Everyone's motivations are clear here. The tax software companies get tracking information about how their web sites are being used. Meta gets to harvest more personal data. Users are either oblivious or just don't care.

There's no magic here. The idea of a third-party tracking pixel is not new. What I didn't realize was that sites are now adding whole blocks of third-party code which does things even they don't seem to know about.

In addition, Java in a webpage can do a lot more than just scan the current page. Been there, wrote that. That is the troubling part of putting code that a third party provides, without due diligence to analyze what exactly the code is doing.

 

[COcheesehead]

I would disagree. The information in a phone book is far less than what information we have exposed to us today. In addition, with the phone book it was very difficult to associate the wrong information with a person, while it is very common today. ALso, if you think FB is using the data *only* to serve up ads that appeal to us (and frankly most people do not want to deal with ads even if they do appeal to us), think again



In addition, Java in a webpage can do a lot more than just scan the current page. Been there, wrote that. That is the troubling part of putting code that a third party provides, without due diligence to analyze what exactly the code is doing.

If you have insider knowledge of what FB is doing with the data other than to drive revenue from advertisers, please offer it. We all would like to know.

 

[ncbill]

These products all drop to $25 or so if you wait until Black Friday.

That's worth it to me not to have to enter my personal data into a website.

Shoot, their tax forms aren't final enough to file until January anyway.