Intuit Sued Over Product Activation 456
An anonymous reader writes "PCWorld is reporting: [Scott] Leviant's firm of Stanbury & Fishelman has filed a class-action lawsuit against Intuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of all U.S. purchasers of TurboTax software for the 2002 tax year. The suit alleges that Intuit engaged in unfair and deceptive business practices by failing to fully disclose the mechanisms and consequences of its product-activation technology before consumers pay for the software."
Remember when Intuit were the good guys? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remember when Intuit were the good guys? (Score:3, Interesting)
I really agree with this (Score:3, Interesting)
I have no problem with paying for good, reliable, quality software for my home machine, but if you use tricks or traps to sucker people into paying more than they should, that's just not right.
SOFTWARE MAKERS: Don't cry foul about piracy and then turn around and be just as dishonest with consumers.
Well, I guess this is a reason to go back to pirating my games
Re:I really agree with this (Score:5, Interesting)
I would NEVER pay for software that plays tricks with my hard drive, even if I needed it and the price was right. When I see software that does this, I get mad and pull out my eyepatch and put the parrot on my shoulder.
Re:I really agree with this (Score:5, Interesting)
The companies have become so hellbent on stopping piracy (which their techniques don't. Don't believe me? Check IRC sometime) that they no longer seem to care about fucking over the legit consumer. (Witness the number of problems people have with SecuROM and Safedisc "protected" titles.) All they do with these routines is stop the casual copier, but everyone I know just downloads the titles anyway. I can't remember the last time anybody I know engaged in "casual copying". Macrovision and Sony (they created SecuROM) have pulled the biggest scam ever on the software companies by persuading them to pay for their crappy "protection".
Side note: Always amuses me in the warez groups
Re:I really agree with this (Score:5, Insightful)
Wonderfully done, bravo. State the obvious (that anti-piracy targets non-hackers) and then mix in a little FUD (that IRC DCCs are "trojan packed distribution"s).
You get extra creativity points for painting those who would like to exercise their right to fair use with software as "someone who'll jerk around in an IRC room all night".
This lawsuit is a wake-up call (actually a RE-wake-up call since we've already been through this once before in the software arena) to software companies that have gotten too big for their britches: Don't piss off your customers...period.
--K.
Re:I really agree with this (Score:5, Insightful)
I am against software piracy, and I've bought tax software every year from 1992 until last year (I still have every program). This year I'm doing my taxes by hand for the first time ever.
The problem with product activation is it turns the software from a product into a service. Even though I have the CD, I can't install the program with full functionality. When I buy software, I want to be able to run it forever. I still have a parition with DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11, mostly to play older games. I also run legal copies of Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Slackware. I do not run XP, and I won't as long as it has product activation.
I'm in Canada, but if I was in the US, I'd consider buying the software just to join the lawsuit.
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:I really agree with this (Score:4, Informative)
so you are a canadian? (Score:5, Funny)
%^)
Re:so you are a canadian? (Score:3, Interesting)
No, sir. I am not a Canadian. I AM AN AMERICAN, AND DAMN PROUD OF IT.
I'll get to the point in a second, but first, I want to dog the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. If you work for that fucked up piece of beaucracy, listen up... You probably don't realize this, but your actions FUCK UP PEOPLE'S LIVES. The way a government beaucracy works is kind of like a complicated piece of software from Microsoft (except that Microsoft's software is actually better than the operation of a government beaucracy, and believe me, I have no respect for Microsoft or anything they do). A beaucracy is able to (albeit very inefficiently) handle a specified number of "states." There might be 10 or 100 or 10,000 of these states. For example, say you have a file with this yellow form in it, that green form, and some purple form. That would place you in a very specific state, and the beaucracy "knows" how to proceed in processing your "case" from this point forward. Now if you approach the beaucracy with something that does not conform exactly to one of the states that they handle, you will be stuck because nobody in the beaucracy has the authority to do anything about you. It's like falling through the cracks of a conveyor belt and landing in some shit pile where you'll stay forever because nobody ever cleans it up. Did you recently hear about a bunch of people getting busted over destroying INS documents because they wanted to eliminate the so-called backlog? Yeah. I live in the United States since before I was two years old. I am twenty four now. Over fifteen years ago, my immigration process got stuck somehow in an unhandled "state" like I described above. Papers from my file were lost by the INS, and as a result, no matter where I turned, nobody could or would help me. Maybe those documents were shredded. Maybe they fell behind someone's desk and got thrown away by a janitor who gets paid $30.00 an hour. It doesn't matter how it happened. What matters is that regardless of what I tried, I was told that this is already being handled by the INS (which I knew for a fact that it wasn't), and if I got a penny for every time I was told, "Don't call us, we'll call you," Bill Gates would be my personal servant. The INS literally fucked up my life. I could not get a social security number, or a driver license, or a bank account, or a job, or go to a university... I could not cash a check written to my name. If I had been so inclined, I would not even be able to prove my age to buy a pack of cigarettes. This went on for twelve years. If I was to count the hours I spent waiting in LONG lines with millions of Mexicans, being the only gringo in the entire building who could ACTUALLY speak this country's official language, only to be turned away by the idiot INS clerk who could not and would not even attempt to help me, I probably wasted a year of my life in man-hours standing in those God-damned lines.
Some might be inclined to tell me, "If life is so bad for you here, go back to your country!" What those people don't understand is that AMERICA IS MY COUNTRY! I know no other country. I have never set foot on foreign land, save for my almost two years as an infant when I lived elsewhere. The United States is the one and only country I know, and there is no way in the world that I would break because of a stupid agency and move to some foreign land where I don't even know the language. Being probably the most honest American around, I even contemplated breaking the law and seeking quality false IDs--the ones that can't be told apart from the real thing because they're made from the real thing, stolen from the agencies that make them. Sure, those can cost thousands of dollars, but did I mention the THOUSANDS of dollars that had to be paid TO THE INS as FINES for THEIR negligence?!? That's right. The INS would fuck up and I would have to pay a fine for it.
In case you're interested, I was lucky enough, after having fallen into a deep depression and having suffered at the hands of the INS for YEARS, to fall into the hands of one officer who took it upon himself to reconstruct the missing documents and get my life on the right track. This process took a year, which is light-speed compared to what happened before.
We Americans, of which I am a member, should be FUCKING ASHAMED at the shit our government pulls off. (The previous statement does not include the current war, but definitely includes the so-called War On Drugs, which is a waste of time and money. You want to fry your brain? Fine... The government should legalize ALL drugs, sell 55-gallon drums of the stuff to ANYONE who is so inclined, for the price of the drum plus delivery. The drugs inside are free and of supremely high quality. This will immediately destroy the entire market for illegal drugs. Did I mention they should tax the stuff?)
Now to get on-topic. I purchased this piece of GARBAGE from Intuit, not knowing that it contained this shit, and I refuse to damage my computer and/or tell software makers that this practice is ok by installing it. I definitely want to join the aforementioned class action lawsuit.
Preach it, brother! (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish you well, I am glad you finally got it straightened out. Hang tough!
Tell ya a story from my girlfriend. She gets a divorce before I met her, but never changed her name back, so one day she goes to do it. Buncha calls later she's down at the SSN office trying to get a new card, she got STACKS of ID, proof of this, proof of that, bills, insurance papers, the whole regular american deal, including our state DL of course. We are the only two anglos in the room. About two dozen or so hispanics. I saw the "ID" these guys were using to get SSN's, didn't even have a picture on it! Just printed up pieces of paper with some weird stamp on it, and they were going through the line fast as the clerks could handle it. One of them was the translator, it was like he had a tour group almost. I mean, we are sitting right there watching this go down.
Comes my girlfriends turn in line, NOPE, not enough "proof" to get it that day, had to go get some more. We are both steamed and incredulous, but what can ya do. So, before we leave, I asked the lady "WHAT is up with handing out all the cards to these guys? Can't you see you are being scammed?" I'm paraphrasing but I asked her that. So, she leans over to me across the counter, older white lady, whispers "we got ordered to do it that way, we don't like it either". No lie, she told me that.
That was in an office in norcross georgia, a burb northeast of atlanta, about 4.5 years ago.
Re:I really agree with this (Score:4, Informative)
Like the rest of you I got tired of this Intuit crap and started looking for the alternatives last year.
TaxWiz [taxwiz.ca]: Used it for my 2001 filing for my family (5 adults). Lousy interface and printing is a royal PITA, but overall did the job. Uh oh, bought by Intuit.
CanTax [cantax.com]: Used to sell personal versions for consumers, but now concentrates on tax professionals. Tried out the demo and decided to use it this year. Assumes at least better than novice tax prep knowledge. Pricey ($79 for 15 returns) compared to the consumer level stuff but seems solid.
Dr Tax [drtax.ca]: Like CanTax, targeted towards the professional tax prep people. Tried the demo -- seems solid enough but too much work if you're not a tax geek.
Anyway, hopefully the field doesn't narrow too much next year!
Re:I really agree with this (Score:2, Interesting)
It was roughly $70 a person if I remember right
Re:I really agree with this (Score:2)
I went online (Score:2)
Re:I really agree with this (Score:3)
If I've bought a product, I don't want to have to activate it. I don't even want to type in any lame 20 character alpha-numeric serial numbers. I want the old Borland Turbo Pascal license, which went something like this: "You are expect to treat this product like a book. You can run it on as many machines as you like, as long as you only use one copy at a time. You can give it to somebody else, but only if you destroy your copies."
Why not just use a dongle? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, if they want to be so draconian about it why not just put one hardware dongle in the box? Sadly, I know why, because trashing your hard drive is much cheaper than a 20 cent bit of plastic and an 80 cent chip.
Hopefully this class action will change the economics around a bit. It should be more expensive to ruin my system than to include a hardware dongle.
here is the... (Score:5, Informative)
A compelling reason to Boycott Intuit (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A compelling reason to Boycott Intuit (Score:4, Insightful)
A boycott would be ineffective in sending a message to them. Your time would be more effective sending them nastygrams about their practices.
Using a web service or software to assist with taxes is, more or less, a luxury. We're in a crappy economy plus looming war with Iraq. They won't see a connection between the dropoff in sales and their crummy registration practices. (nor does this help those who already have paid for it.)
If you really want to make a statement, tell them you're unhappy with the and won't do business with them. Simply not buying the software won't send the message across.
I agree with the spirit of the parent post, I ust think the implementation needs a step added to it.
Re:A compelling reason to Boycott Intuit (Score:2, Interesting)
For Intuit: If you have inept web server programmers please just post an email address. Like previous posters, I've been a faithful customer of yours since 2000, but no more. After your software destroyed a co-worker's PC with multi OS boot setup I didn't dare go near it. Farewell - and please do fire the uneducated member of your staff that floated this idea.
Re:A compelling reason to Boycott Intuit (Score:2)
I'm not so anvomous...
You absolutely should tell people, just make sure they understand the problem. I could tell my dad (an experienced computer dude) the problem with boot sectors etc, but I'd have to approach my mom differently. I'd suggest saying "problem is when it comes time to do your taxes, you may find it won't work, and that could screw up your filing status..." as opposed to "they're messin with your computer!" They might not care as long as it 'works', but if you let them know it coulf fail at a critical point then they may take the time to inform others.
Do you have an online journal or blog? You could explain the problem there in a way that your community will find interesting, then blast a link for people to contact Intuit (email I hope) saying "I will never be a customer of yours as long as you do this..."
That's how I'd attack it. Heck, put it in your Slashdot sig!
Re:A compelling reason to Boycott Intuit (Score:5, Informative)
TaxCut (Score:2)
Get ready Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think product registration is a great idea, as it can help you get a better service and allows the company to get info on its users.. but forcing you to activate a product is just a Big Brother attitude.
How would you like it if you had to 'activate' your car every time you moved or made an upgrade to it? Sure, it might help the insurance companies a whole lot, but it's just not right. Ditto for software.
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but my car doesn't stop working in 30 days if it doesn't get registered with the manufacturer.
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:2)
It can when the DMV decides to suspend your license and/or your insurance company drops your coverage because you didn't keep current information. And I'm not spreading FUD; I've had a license revoked because I didn't keep my whereabouts current.
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:3, Interesting)
With that covering why you have to register a vehicle, let me now explain why the manufactures haven't fought this particular bit of legislation. The manufactures like the law because it gives them an excuse to keep a close eye on rebates for sales. A common method of fraud by vehicle dealers is to sell a vehicle on a certain date, but not to register it with the manufacture for a date sometimes months afterwords. Since dealers know they will get rebates for each vehicle sold during a certain time period, they simply hold off on the registration until the rebate period comes up. The dealer than gets the factory to dealer rebates and the factory to customer rebates. If the customer even knows enough to ask they are simply told they are getting a little longer period on the warranty for "free". I worked on this computer systems for this, so I can assure that this kind of fraud is quite substantial.
Hint, if you've ever been asked not to date a vehicle sales purchase agreement, the dealer intends on collecting an additional refund, and quite possibly "your" refund. This is when they don't simply white out your agreement date and write in their own date. We busted one dealer for sending in some 60 to 70 of these in one month, all with obviously the same handwriting! (Think typical rebate of 2-3 grand).
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:4, Funny)
Um, this kinds of logic just doesn't apply to software. Unless you live in the ST:TNG universe, you can't replicate your car so that more than one person can drive it at a time.
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if you did live in the ST:TNG universe, trying this would probably create a temporal distortion, merge you with a Vulcan, and kill your cat.
-prator
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but I can lend my car to a friend. And if I get a new muffler I don't have to go take my driving test again.
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:5, Informative)
I hope someone does - my latest fiasco with this: We have a volume license for XP, and thus should be excluded from activation. But we recently purchased 300 new computers from Dell. The wonderful MS tax kicks in, because you know you can't get a good pc without paying for XP all over again. Of course with this many pcs, I need a ghost image. So I go about my usual routine of setting one up nicely then getting ready for sysprep (don't you just love how sysprep PUTS BACK the MSN and media shortcuts - and those stupid bubble prompts for desk clean up and updates?). After the ghost, the only thing we should have to do is put in the computer name, the answer file takes care of the key codes. But noooooo, a volume license key code is incompatible with preinstalled OS from Dell. But the Dell ones had alredy been activated by them. So that leaves us with
A) - put your software on by hand for each PC - sucks - not gonna happen
B) reformat the hard drive, re-install the truck load of drivers that XP didn't plug-n-play, then go about putting your apps on, then ghost - sucks again - who wants to take a nifty new computer and then just wipe it out?
C) Use the original image, and when the answer file gets stuck at the key code, type in the one on the Dell sticker, then you have to activate it again within 30 days - (we are not even sure if there would be a problem with that, since it was already done) - sucks - tiny numbers out of reach, so it takes almost two ppl to do this. Plus now the number could be tagged to the PC, so you have to keep good inventory of all of this. Nice job again MS - I just love how you are making me work my fanny off. Oh yeah, we went for B - reformat and a big FU.
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:5, Informative)
I would think that for a customer buying 300 PCs at once, Dell would mention those things to you if they really did offer them.
~Philly
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:2)
There is also the MS option, of using something like SMS or some sort and push installing your apps to each workstation. Of course that is $$ for server package, $$ for the server hardware, $$ for workstation licenses, again - sucks - not gonna happen.
Jesus H. Christ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Pay for superfluous Windows licenses, or pay more for the privilege of using your pre-existing licenses. What a great choice!
~Philly
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:3)
Looks like you missed the bold part...
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:2)
So you bought MS Windows twice? Yeah, big FU. They must have really hated that.
This is the point where you start making a case to your superiors for alternative operating systems.
Re:Get ready Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
Lest you think I'm picking on Microsoft here, other major software vendors, such as Adobe, Autodesk (another C-Dilla offender), and probably even Intuit, practice the same techniques. It's not about making better software, it's about making money. That's why you have a software business.
This is an outrage! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is an outrage! (Score:4, Funny)
The suit alleges that the I.R.S. engaged in unfair and deceptive business practices by failing to fully disclose the mechanisms and consequences of income taxes before citizens pay their taxes.
The funniest part is, the above sentence is still completely true ;-).
Re:This is an outrage! (Score:2)
Law firm touts for business... (Score:5, Insightful)
People can argue about the merits of this or that with product activation but the thing that really sucks here is the motivations and the way the law works. This is in effect a company touting for business saying "hey look we think a bunch of people could get cash here" its not that they have any real evidence of actual damage that was caused beyond people being a bit miffed.
What sort of legal system allows Lawyers to start procedings before they have plantiffs ? No other industry works like this, and in fact almost no other countries legal system works like this. This is a sickening example of how law suits can be created just because a lawyer needs a new Ferrari, NOT because there is real evidence of damage.
Re:Law firm touts for business... (Score:2, Informative)
As for your complaint about our legal system because it encourages a lawyer to file a lawsuit by rewarding them with profits
Our legal system is far from perfect and lends itself to abuse. But it also keeps businesses on their toes with the threat that if they abuse consumenrs, some lawyer is lurking around to make them pay. This terrible system does not seem to have kept us from having, by far, the strongest economy in the world. Perhaps you would prefer, like most other countries in the world, to leave it up to the government to enforce dconsummer protection laws. Good luck with that.
Re:Law firm touts for business... (Score:2)
I remember those days: That's when people in my state (N.J.) could pay for a year's automobile insurance premiums with a single check, instead of needing a payment plan like they do today.
These days, the businesses that buy the most full-page ads in the yellow pages are law firms that take accidental injury cases on a contingent-fee basis. AFAIK, a single law firm of this kind has bought the most expensive ad in the entire phone book (the entire back cover) on every phone book in the whole state for as long as that space has been available for advertising.
my experience (Score:5, Interesting)
It took 3 phone calls (800 number) to get someone to give me a new number. They take calls only M-F 8 to 5. The single time I reinstalled WinXP on a different machine I was able to talk to someone at MS in seconds at 3 in the morning. It was painless as it could be, given I had to read a 50 digit (!!) number to them. Intuit made this miserable process even more miserable.
Fuck that. I'll use something else next year if they keep this crap up.
Re:my experience (Score:3, Interesting)
It took me one time using their on-line tech support chat applet to get a new number (only waiting about 1 minute for them to get to me). Then again, the reason I needed it was because I swear the damn software destroyed my laptop's boot blocks. I now have it installed on a POS system I have laying around so I can at least get my taxes done.
Re:my experience (Score:2)
Information Before You Purchase (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps software companies should do the same. I would really like to see a copy of a EULA before I make a purchase. As I'm sure you all know once you open a product even before you can view the EULA it's too late, you can't take it back to the store.
Going a step further, it would also be nice to know what kind of third party software is included with the software you are purchasing. This would include third party copy protection, spyware and other bundled programs.
Hard copy or soft copy, this information should definately be available before the purchase. It is for almost everything else, why not software?
Re:Information Before You Purchase (Score:5, Interesting)
I sure as hell don't. In fact I NEVER read EULAs anymore.
Some argue that it's best to NOT read them, believing that they won't hold up in court because they are:
(a) incomperhensible for the lay-man.
(b) contain restictions or requirements that aren't legal.
(c) unreasonably long and printed in unreadable UPPER CASE small fonts.
(d) require an unjustified amount of effort to understand compared to the product provided (imagine that you'd have to read a similar agreement for every can of soda you bought).
(e) agreeing to read them == agreeing to them (once you use the product).
(f) I'm sure someone can come up with some even better argument.
I can't imagine having to read 4 pages of non-understandable jibberish in a super small font, for every software product I use. It's just unreasonable. I would have to allocate a week a year to do just that.
In any case, reading the EULA would have probably not had any impact on the purchase of Quicken software. I'm sure the legal babble didn't describe anything about writing to your boot sector (well it was really the mostly unused sectors after the MBR, but what the hell).
I'm also sure that it already contains bs like you can only use it on one PC. They are not going to go in detail how they try to enforce it, in the EULA.
So, no PLEASE don't make me read EULAs.
Oh goody... a class-action lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
The consumers who got screwed will probably get a coupon good for $5.00 off next years Turbotax, or something similarly useless.
Re:Oh goody... a class-action lawsuit (Score:2)
My brother is a lawyer and I saw first hand the amount of damage a small-class action suit can do to a corrupt municipal government. What really matters is damages and how they get metered out. There's no corporate death penalty and lawyers cost money, that's America. Just complaining about how useless the system is means you've already conceded defeat.
If you think class-actions are useless ask yourself how big tobacco was knocked on its ear or why GOP politicians are always crying about limiting damages from class actions.
Who mods this reactionary crap up?
Re:Oh goody... a class-action lawsuit (Score:2)
Yeah, class-action suits can be extremely damaging to companies. When they're filed on behalf of poor ot disadvantaged plaintiffs, they can even be a good thing. More often though, they're just an excuse for a law firm looking to line its own pockets. Legal teams for both sides haggle for a few months, then the consumer gets a coupon good for a few dollars off soem higher-priced product, or a token rebate. Meanwhile the lawyers on both sides pocket a few million dollars.
Big tobacco knocked on its ear? Have you checked Phllip-Morris' stock price lately? Or seen their latest annual report?
Re:Oh goody... a class-action lawsuit (Score:2)
Every other settlement I'v been a class of was worthless. Like the Nationwide Life Insurance suit. "Ooo, we cheated you for 3 years, here half an extra $10,000 in life insurance on us"
Please...you cheated me once, like I'm coming back to you.
Quick Tax in Canada has the same activation junk (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Quick Tax in Canada has the same activation jun (Score:2, Funny)
Hold on.... (Score:4, Funny)
Where do I sign up? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Where do I sign up? (Score:2)
The root of the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Though that still leaves Microsoft's product activation. Oh, right, I'm running Linux. Never mind.
Re:The root of the problem (Score:2, Informative)
The thing that makes taxes complicated is not the graduated rates, it's figuring out how much taxable income you have in the first place.
The flat tax schemes might make that a tad easier for the "average" taxpayer, but their main purpose is to make it a whole lot easier for the above average taxpayer by making much of their income exempt from taxation.
Fair or simple - you only get (at most) one when it comes to tax laws
Re:The root of the problem (Score:2)
Graduated rates add complexity too. Look at all the journalists who got confused by the new 10% tax bracket. Most of them completely missed the point that folks at the bottom of the income scale who made enough to pay federal income taxes in the first place had their tax bills chopped by one third. Granted, the average old media journalist has the equivalent mathematical ability of a
The flat tax schemes might make that a tad easier for the "average" taxpayer, but their main purpose is to make it a whole lot easier for the above average taxpayer by making much of their income exempt from taxation.
Being able to do your taxes on a postcard rather than have people who couldn't figure out a frickin' butterfly ballot wade through the 1040 is a serious process simplification. The "rich" hire tax attorneys to do their taxes for them and find/write the necessary loopholes, paying appropriate sums of "campaign contributions" to Democrats if their inclined to pay protection money (or are masochistic), to Republicans if they're tired of being tax slaves, or some to each if they're completely gutless (your average Big Business executive). With the Flat Tax, the loopholes are gone. Subtract your personal and dependent deductions from your gross income and pay 17% of what's left, no matter how sharp your accountants are. BTW, it's working very well in Russia now (13% rate). It's pretty damn sad (for us) when a former KGB spook can implement a far saner tax code than America has.
Besides saving $billions in wasted compliance costs, you'd get rid of tons of wasteful behavior. Businesses lease gear because it's tax efficient. Individuals load up on mortgage debt (artificially inflating housing costs) because it's a tax deduction. It's like teaching to a seriously dysfunctional test. Tax codes should balance behavior neutrality with practicality and raise just enough money to run the government. They should not be social engineering torture devices.
Fair or simple - you only get (at most) one when it comes to tax laws
And we have neither now. We can argue about fair forever, but we could have simple now.
Let's See... (Score:2, Troll)
They insert an activation key that tries to limit the number of returns the software does, and the number of machines it's installed on. They then botch the installation of said tools and make it very hard to remove/use until they release patch after patch.
Yet, somehow, in these great United States, they now are getting sued for trying to protect the licensing agreement that no one reads and every just clicks 'agree' onto.
What a great country we live in eh?
Activation nonsense due to perfect CD copying (Score:2)
Re:Activation nonsense due to perfect CD copying (Score:5, Insightful)
Draconian copy proiection does nothing to solve this - it just punishes legitimate users.
If you don't believe me, try going on Overnet (or eDonkey, Kazaa, etc.) and search for "turbo tax." I just turned up 13 hits for the full program, and about 60 hits for cracks for it.
Software companies learned back in the 80s that extreme copy protection just drives buyers away. That's why games don't come with those ridiculous code wheels and text-lookups-in-the-instruction-manual protection schemes any more.
Re:Activation nonsense due to perfect CD copying (Score:3)
The brings back some fairly interesting memories of hand-copying and hand-creating a fairly elaborate code-wheel to play a copy of a friend's game. Took me all d*mn day, but being ~15 or so at the time with no cash, it did let me play it without dropping $50 or so. (Think it was 'starflight' or some such.) Ironically, if they priced it lower than it was (say, $30), I would've bought a legit copy and not needed to go through that. Then the company'd have gotten a total of $60 as opposed to a total of $50 between my friend and I.
The old days (Score:5, Insightful)
When if a product was well written and did its job, it would sell...
You could put a whole application on a 3.5" disk.
Printed manuals!
When you didn't need copy protection and activation screens. Piracy was more-or-less a marketing tactic more than something that cut into sales (and IMO it still is, but the software publishers don't want the public to know this)
Software companys generated revenue through customer loyalty (as opposed to customer extortion)
One software product had the audacity to recognize that other competing/complimentary products from other publishers did exist, and openly supported import/export functions
When most commercial software wasn't written in Pakastani or Indian programmer-warehouses.
Tech support telephone numbers weren't systemmatically hidden in a maze of FAQs, if at all, and they were 800 numbers.
You could install a software program without worrying if doing so would completely screw up your computer, other programs, or wipe out all your data.
When a "newer version" actually meant more features and functionality.
When the first version of a software package wasn't labelled "6.0"
When software was designed to work with the hardware and RAM you had installed in your machine, and didn't require you to upgrade to next generation crap in order to operate acceptably.
Re:The old days (Score:4, Insightful)
Not arguing with your other statements, but with this one your trying to make it sound like a bad thing that there is some competition..If they didnt do the work, they would not get the contract..You have to compete in this global economy, its not handed to you on a plate in America any more!
Re:The old days (Score:4, Informative)
I finished a 1-year contract for a fortune 10 company who, of course, farmed all coding out to India. They turned out nothing but crap that rendered the appservers useless due to infinite loops, memory leaks, and a plethora of newb errors.
As much money was spent on on-shore people to fix those problems as was spent on the bad code itself, but no one ever actually LEARNED from this and had the on-shore guys just DO the coding.
God that pisses me off.
Re:The old days (Score:2)
/me brings up a rocking chair and some single-malt scotch.
Re:The old days (Score:3, Interesting)
The golden age of copy prevention remains the mid-to-late 1980s. I remember very well the fact that the best selling program in 1987 for PCs was "Copy II PC" which was a software unprotect program. Wanna scare a person who was a Commodore 64 owner? Make "Kachunk! Kachunk!" noises at them. Why is that scary? Because there was a copy prevention scheme that caused the heads in a C64 floppy drive to bang around violently. Remember media with deliberately introduced physical flaws? Remember questions like "what is the word which is on page 1, line 5, word 17 of your software manual?" and you would have to answer them before you could get into your software?
No, there was a reason why aggressive copy prevention died out around the end of the '80s. People didn't want it, and embraced alternative software without the copy prevention.
It might take a while, but they'll learn their lesson. But wait for another 15 years or so, and someone will try it again. Such seems to be the cyclical nature of software companies and "piracy" paranoia.
Oh yeah, another blast from the past for those other old farts who remember it: "Home Taping Is Killing Music!" "C30, C60, C90, Go!" Ha ha ha ha...
boot track protection... (Score:5, Interesting)
1. before install, make a backup of the boot track and checksum it.
2. after install, checksum the boot track, and display diffs, if any.
3. optional restore of the boot track.
This allows us to get our old boot tracks back, and *still* get the fun of starting a righteous flame-war on SlashDot.
Sorry if the answer to this is "yes, you clueless fool, go use tool __". But at least I'll get educated
Re:boot track protection... (Score:3, Informative)
Wow (Score:2)
Designed for Windows logo criteria (Score:5, Interesting)
How in heaven's name could anything that writes the boot track earn the Windows logo? This cranky old software validation manager smells either cluelessness (MSFT) or cheating (Intuit) or some combination of the above.
Same activation in Quicken XG (Score:2)
Oh the hypocrisy of it all (Score:2, Funny)
I love it...
~SL
Registration and Activation are ALWAYS wrong (Score:2)
2 - I bought it, I shouldn't have to ask their permission to use it..
About Bending Over (Score:2, Funny)
Bending over backward for Intuit does seem appropariate, given how much they've had their customers bending over forward.
Why aren't they suing for QuickBooks? (Score:2)
Heheh.....hehehehe....hahahahaha..... (Score:3, Funny)
Someone hand Intuit the K-Y Jelly and set up the webcam, its time to watch these guys get the screwing they so rightly deserve. My stepdad uses Turbotax on his aged PC, and when it crashed, and crashed hard, during the middle of the process, he ran into this problem. He tried to get everything straightened out, and when they told him of the fee, this man, who never cusses, used words I shall not repeat here. So he got the joy of spending six hours doing it by hand instead. I'm gonna call him and tell him about this right after this post.
VMWare (Score:5, Insightful)
So if I wanted, hypothetically, I could copy that VMWare file to any other machine and run it from there.
I don't have any intention of copying or sharing the software. But it pisses me off that a) I had to take these measures to ensure the safety and stability of my real OS installation, and b) for all the possible danger to my machine if I'd installed it the normal way, it was trivial to circumvent.
Good move guys.
I recommend... (Score:2)
Audit... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why I will never purchase another Intuit product (Score:5, Informative)
The whole time I've had anything to do with Intuit's products, they have been trying to nickel and dime me to death. I guess I'm smarter than the average Quicken user and anyway it pissed me off enough that I wasn't willing to give in.
Let me count the ways.
With the online banking available for Quicken and Quickbooks, there is a monthly fee. Web banking at all three of the banks I've used since the web has been around has been free.
Quicken comes with tax tables that it will use to calculate payroll withholding, but the tax tables expire after a few months. To get updates to the tax tables, you have to pay for a subscription.
But the information in the tax tables is made available for free by the IRS and each state tax agency, and in fact is printed and mailed to business owners each year at taxpayer expense.
Yet there is no facility for manually entering the tax tables or importing tax table files that could reasonably be downloaded for free off the net.
My business has only one employee (myself) so what I do is work out my withholding in a spreadsheet. I've found that doing the calculation this way helps me understand my taxes better when I'm deciding what to pay myself each time. Fortunately QuickBooks allows me to enter the withholding manually - I wouldn't be suprise if they remove that in the future.
They're constantly trying to sell you preprinted checks and invoice forms. You should be able to print nice invoices from QuickBooks on an inkjet printer without using preprinted forms, but there is no facility for designing the invoices. So what I usually do is type up an invoice and email it to my clients; if they want a hardcopy I use a wordprocessor. That works out for me because I don't invoice clients very frequently - it wouldn't work for a retail store.
If you reinstall Quickbooks after reinstalling your OS or move it to a new machine, you have to reactivate the product. My copy of Quickbooks doesn't have the horrible activation scheme this article is about, but what is a pain is that after activating it a couple times, you're told that the product is in use and it won't reactivate. You have to call tech support to get a code to reactivate it.
Fortunately I now have this code written down so I can reactivate it myself. But you know, I paid for the product, I should be able to use it without registering it. They have my damn money.
The last straw for me was that earlier this year, Intuit canceled support for QuickBooks 99's online banking. I got spammed with upgrade notices every time I logged on before this happened. After it happened I canceled my online banking and now I just use the web banking.
I have come to the conclusion that online banking like Quicken and Quickbooks have is just not that good an idea. The whole time I've used both products I have had trouble with my accounts not balancing right. Now that I reconcile my accounts manually with my bank statements, and so am much more careful about it than the supposedly convenient online banking, I have been able to get my books to balance exactly.
I used TurboTax a couple times. I didn't like it the first time I used it, but I used it a second year because I was out of the country and wanted to file online.
First, I think it's pretty damn useless. To handle the schedule C, business income, it asks such meaningful questions as "enter your business expenses" - but you have to figure that out yourself without using turbotax. It's just as easy to enter it on a paper form.
Last year my taxes were much more complicated because I now own a house and so am itemizing deductions, but I found that while doing my taxes by hand, without using software, I was able to claim a deduction that saved significant money. Turbotax would never have found that deduction.
(What I did was have my corporation pay rent to me personally for rental of my home office. But I would have to pay taxes on the rental income. What I was able to do was to depreciate the portion of my home used for business purposes. The maximum depreciation allowed was the business income on the property - which was the total amount of the rent. So I was able to pay myself the home office rental tax-free, I won't have to pay taxes on the rent for decades. The IRS had no complaint about this. Turbotax wouldn't have been able to deal with it.)
I just plain feel that it's wrong for a software publisher to require me to activate a product before I can use it, and so I will never knowingly purchase a software product that requires it. That means I'm never going to install Windows XP. Also I'm never going to install service pack 3 on my Win2k box, because of the EULA.
Finally, I'd like to suggest that if any of you work for companies that have staff attorneys, that you suggest to the attorneys that they require attorney approval of EULAs before any software gets installed. If enough companies start doing that, the current nonsense that passes for a license agreement will get set straight pretty quick - imagine if General Motors wasn't willing to use Windows because their staff attorneys objected to the license agreement!
Their other product would have helped... (Score:3, Funny)
(for the slow people, Intuit ion)
EULA and disk space TurboTax issues. (Score:5, Informative)
The cause of my problems are the partition scheme of my laptop. The Windows2000Pro system C: partition is 900MB, just big enough for the OS and some temp files. The swapfile is on another larger partition, as are all third-party applications.
The "Minimum System Requirements" on the box (a DVD-style clamshell) are easy to read through the shrinkwrap. To summarize the relevant parts, the OS list included Windows2000, the hard disk space specified 65MB and an additional 60MB if IE was not installed. IE 5.5 or higher was listed as being required to access online features, obtain product updates, and complete electronic filing. I read this before buying, and noted that my system meets all the requirements given on the box.
On insertion, the CD autorun process kicked up a splash window, then an animated install menu window. I clicked the obvious choice to register and install, followed the prompts through selecting my type of network connection, filling out the registration info and getting to a window with a single button to "Install." Clicking the install button got me a window where the file copying process is obviously supposed to happen, but instead I get a standard alery window that informs me that there is insufficient space on the hard disk to install.
Some notable things at this point: I have never been presented a EULA of any type. None of the windows I have progressed through have displayed a EULA, nor has there been any possible sequence of buttons that makes one appear. There is no EULA in the printed material inside the box. I have also not entered the CD key code anywhere in the process. There is no prompt for it anywhere up to this point, not even in the registration window where I entered my name/address/email type info. This becomes interesting in another hour or so when I'm on the phone with their support staff.
I'm now at the point where the TurboTax installer will not proceed further because I do not have 191MB available on drive C:. I want to install on drive E: which has plenty of space, so I consulted the FAQ on the turbotaxsupport.com website. I didn't find anything applicable, so decided to consult a support staffer about the best way to make this happen. (They use a webchat interface to provice frontline support.) The live person on the other end directed me to the web FAQ with a set of steps for installing from hard disk instead of CD, involving simply copying the CD installer files to the HD. Doubtful, I tried it anyway, and was not surprised when the installer still stubbornly insisted that there was not enough space because it was only scanning the C: drive. I still had the webchat window open, which gave me an option to select that I was unsatisfied with the help I was given and offered me a chance to talk with a "senior" support staffer via webchat. I muttered "hell yes" and was shortly explaining the problem all over again to a new person. I was walked 4 times through the complete process, echoing the window headings and options at each step laboriously. None of the suggestions made were helpful, and few even made any sense at all. At one point I was even told that the only solution would be to uninstall and then reinstall. I reminded him politely that getting the product installed in the first place was the whole point of this exercise, and asked how I could possibly uninstall when nothing has been installed even once yet. I was then treated like a fencepost and told to find the TurboTax menu under Program Files from the Start menu, at which point I seriously wondered what problem the support staffer thought we were trying to fix. (Of course there was no entry under the start menu.) Finally after convincing him that the product was in fact not installed at all, not even a little bit, and could not be uninstalled, he gave up and provided me with a voice toll number and PIN. I asked for a toll free number but was told none exists. Ouch, since I was envisioning a lengthy call if my experience so far proved typical. I decided to take this as far as it goes.
I had no problems getting to a live person quickly. He seemed to understand the nature of the problem and over the course of the next hour I had a pretty dizzy ride as I was asked the same questions repeatedly and he was consulting with an increasing number of people on his end. I had some pointed questions about the minimum requirements listed on the box, such as why the installer wanted 191MB in the first place, since the requirements plainly state 65MB. I was told that the higher amount was due to not having IE 6.0 installed. I pointed out that the IE requirement on the box stated 5.5 or higher, not that 6.0 was needed. I was told that was true, but if 6.0 is not present the installer will install it. I pointed out that the box said that only 60MB more was needed for IE if it was not present, which means a total of 125MB minimum requirement and asked why 66MB more than that was needed. I didn't get an answer to that. I asked him to confirm that IE 6.0 was required, contrary to what the box said. I was told that IE 6.0 is needed, but he stopped short of giving me an actual confirmation that the box was wrong. I asked him to confirm that the requirements on the box were wrong specifically regarding HD space and IE version, and he went on hold for a while. When he came back he asked me if I read the EULA, as all these facts were in the EULA. I told him I hadn't read the EULA and asked where I could find it, at the same time pointing out that it was irrelevant since I had no way to read system requirements prior to purchase other than on the outside of the box. He told me I must have seen the EULA, it was on the third window of the install process. I told him I didn't remember clicking past it, and by now I had gone through these steps many times. I did it again for him, step by step, this time saying "no EULA" after describing every window. When we got all the way to the diskspace alert, there had been no EULA presented. I pointed out that anything in the EULA couldn't possibly apply to me since it never made an appearance. He never mentioned the EULA again.
At one point or another in the phone conversation I was told the following things, all of which turned out to be false:
That I wasn't being presented all the installer windows because I didn't have IE 6.0 installed.
That the EULA was presented on the third window and before the registration form.
That it was possible to install my E: drive regardless of available space on C:
The end result seemed to be that the installer scans the C: drive before offering an option to specify the location for installation, which they agreed was stupid. They insisted that after that space check there is a prompt that allows changing the installation location, but you can't get there if you don't have enough space for the entire installation on the C: drive. They also changed their minds about how the IE installer worked, and said that it offers a choice to not upgrade to IE 6.0, but obviously not before the space check. I have my doubts, since the disk space alert pops up at the beginning of the file copy process, with the progress bar ready to start counting files. I'm not sure where they are fitting in the choices for install location and options, but it sure doesn't seem to be before the initial file copy. This implies to me that it always needs 191MB on the C: drive to install, no matter what the environment is, which is still 66MB more than the requirements stated on the box. I hope it's not so, but I doubt I'll ever see for myself. I'm not repartitioning my system to accomodate a single proprietary tax program.
I know my experience surely isn't typical. Most people have 200MB or more free on their C: drive. I just don't have the extra space to waste on my laptop for a Windows system partition, and this shouldn't be about how I partition my machine. There were several humorous points for me in the conversations, I think the funniest was when I was told by one of their "experts" to relabel my drives to swap E: and C: just for the install and then switch them back. I had to keep from laughing as I explained that I couldn't change the letter of a running system boot partition, and even if I could the system likely would die immediately and certainly wouldn't be bootable in that condition. Another funny one was the idea that "minimum system requirements" meant only those needed to run the application, but not to install it. Their argument was that the installer temporarily needs more than the minimum requirements during installation, but that the program would run fine with the listed requirements. I believe that is an unreasonable position.
I was given an address to return the product for a refund and cut loose. I came away with several concerns, especially surrounding the EULA (or apparent lack of one) and the listed minimum system requirements, which are misleading at best and untruthful at worst. It's bad enough that a product requires you to buy it before you can read the EULA, and we're used to that. But for the CD-based installer to require you to register the product before you can even install it, and doesn't even show you the EULA until after it copies the product to your hard disk is pretty bad in my opinion. Perhaps I should count myself fortunate that I never got far enough to see the EULA.
Another devious tactic of Intuit's (Score:3, Informative)
As you may or may not know, the IRS was going to allow people who made lass than a certain amount of money in 2002 file for free on their website. Intuit complained, citing that they would take a monetary hit because of the loss of people who would otherwise use their software.
So, an agreement of sorts was made: The IRS wouldn't have e-file on their website, but Intuit had to allow people who made less than $27,000 to file for free (see taxfreedom.com [taxfreedom.com]). So Intuit did this.
However, here comes the catch: In order to continue your return without paying, you have to click on a small link back at the taxfreedom website. Instead, when people return to turbotax.com, you are greeted with the "Continue your return" link. And guess what? the second you log back in to check the status of your return, you are billed for $30+!
Granted, Intuit does post a small piece of text on taxfreedom.com that states you must continue from this page, but how many people have actually done this? I feel like a fool for falling for Intuit's deception, so I won't be using their product anymore.
It's just so sad that a company has to stoop to such low levels to make a profit these days.
Real tax issue is this - need standard for eFiling (Score:3)
Does anyone remember form 1040PC? It was a fantastic form that provided a sort of compressed-text summary of your whole tax form on one sheet of paper, that was easy for the IRS to parse and was free to mail in, resulting in almost as quick a return as eFiling.
What I want is a return of something as simple as the 1040PC, that would let me either mail or email a condensed version of my whole return.
I believe the IRS was taking comments on a public eFiling system, but the comment period is closed now - there were a lot of comments from the tax preparers forecasting doom if the IRS let just ANYONE eFile without a fee, but there were some good letters of support. Just in case it makes any difference, please everyone write to the IRS and make a case for letting people eFile on their own, which should teach the idiot tax preparation industry a thing or two about treating customers like dirt and taking advantage of the whole US.
A good place to start contacting the IRS would appear to be here [irs.gov], at the Taxpayer Advocate Service.
Re:Does C-Dilla destroy Linux partitions? (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought it was something that _I_ personally did wrong until I started searching Google trying to find out what I did wrong before installing the software. Did I mess up permissions some where? Did I forget to "su root" before running the scripts? Where was the error?
Well, then I found a blog that said "Likely the biggest problem users have expressed, is the level at which the TurboTax licensing agreement is managed and protected with the SafeCast/C-Dilla technology. People believe C-Dilla infiltrates their system in a very insidious manner, and uses memory and resources even when TurboTax is not loaded. And some believe it has caused them serious compatibility problems with non-related CD writing operations. (PC Magazine and ExtremeTech will be conducting some tests next week to see if we can duplicate some of these problems).
Intuit and Macrovision have provided only cursory information regarding C-Dilla operations. Understandably, Intuit does not want to expose significant details. But if the scheme is mathematically and technically sound, there really is no reason why ALL the details should not be known, as it would likely not be computationally feasible to crack in a reasonable timeframe, even if one is armed with full knowledge of how it works. Unless Intuit and Macrovision provide this level of information, many people will still not trust you."
Re:Does C-Dilla destroy Linux partitions? (Score:3, Interesting)
Partition, I doubt it. But if you're using grub and it has a stage 1.5 loader stored right after the MBR, I could see how it might get corrupted by C-Dilla...
Re:Does C-Dilla destroy Linux partitions? (Score:2)
Re:Does C-Dilla destroy Linux partitions? (Score:3, Informative)
The partition table won't be mangled and your partitions themselves will be fine, but grub, your bootloader, may be stepped on and need to be re-installed if you want to try to boot the system.
Re:Yah, TurboTax Linux Alternatives? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Yah, TurboTax Linux Alternatives? (Score:3, Informative)
TaxCut 'works like a charm' in wine (Score:3, Informative)
If your Linux machine has an x86 (Intel, AMD, VIA, etc) processor, Kiplinger TaxCut should work in Wine [codeweavers.com].
Re:For those who didn't read the article... (Score:2, Interesting)
I have to say this is one of the few times I have heard what could be called good news about the legal system. If you doubt this is so, just imagine how people who have unusual partition tables feel about C-dilla.
Crash
Re:I only have one question... (Score:2)
Read the article.
Re:Another product with unsatisfactory activation (Score:2, Funny)