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Tracking Your Taxes 593

Posted by samzenpus from the tax-spam dept.
CTealL writes "Apparently Intuit thinks it's okay to share information about taxes with third paries. According to this article, Intuit is using a third party tracking technology on all tax forms submitted to the IRS. "We could capture your name, your Social Security number or any other information that you willingly pass to a Web site," acknowledged Matt Belkin, who serves as vice president of best practices for Utah marketing giant Omniture, which tracks the online activities of people using Intuit's TurboTax. The IRS disavows any knowledge of this, saying "The IRS does not take a position on Web tracking tools." Makes you wonder where your tax information is going..."
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Tracking Your Taxes More

Tracking Your Taxes

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  • The moral of the story: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Future Man 3000 ( 706329 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:24PM (#12230066) Homepage
    Paper has nothing on electronics for leaving a trail.

    • Re:The moral of the story: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Gentlewhisper ( 759800 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:24PM (#12230070)
      No.. the true moral of the story is.. American corporate greed knows no bounds...

      • Re:The moral of the story: (Score:5, Insightful)

        by oirtemed ( 849229 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:26PM (#12230079)
        shorten it to greed and you got it right. Americans are no worse than other humans.

    • The morality of the story: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by IPFreely ( 47576 ) <mark@mwiley.org> on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:39PM (#12230180) Homepage Journal
      If the IRS would actually come out with a method of E-Filing that does not require third party involvement, they would go a long way towards elimenating this type of problem. Look at the E-Filing instructions and it's all about how to find the right third party to do it for you (for a Fee!). Bleh.

      At least some states have figured out how to file taxes electronicly and directly (and free!) without involving someone with a profit motive in the mix.

      • They were going to. Intuit and some others threw a lobbying shitfit about their multimillion dollar industry.

      • Re:The morality of the story: (Score:4, Interesting)

        by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @10:17PM (#12230426) Journal

        If the IRS would actually come out with a method of E-Filing that does not require third party involvement, they would go a long way towards elimenating this type of problem.

        It would also be a large taxpayer expense. As it stands now you could get access to send your tax return directly to the government. But you'd have to write the software, and pass the tests, and undergo a criminal background check. This ensures that the government needs to do the least work once it's received a return. It also makes it very hard for criminals to screw up the system by for instance filing false returns for people other than themselves.

        Look at the E-Filing instructions and it's all about how to find the right third party to do it for you (for a Fee!).

        Actually, at least one third party (the makers of TaxAct), offers e-file for free to everyone. They make it hard to find the link, but if you go to the IRS free-file page [irs.gov], scroll down to "TaxACT.com", click the link, click "Leave IRS Site", and then click on "Start Free Return" then you can e-file your federal return absolutely free.

        • Re:The morality of the story: (Score:4, Insightful)

          by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @10:36PM (#12230519)
          It would also be a large taxpayer expense.
          Bull. It costs much more for the IRS to print and process a paper return than an online one, and if there were an official, taxpayer-supported IRS filing site, many more people would e-file.

          I don't know what you're saying about everybody writing their own tax preparation software, but an official IRS site could certainly prevent fraud at least as well as paper forms or TurboTax etc.

          This is a case of purposeful government waste in order to create a market for some companies. Like if I started printing my own paper tax forms, charging $10 for them, then lobbied Congress to stop the IRS from printing tax forms because it was "competing with private industry."

        • The UK government has a truly excellent Web-based tax filing system http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/ [inlandrevenue.gov.uk]. It is one of the best examples of a robust, intuitive, helopful Web-based system I know.

          It saves the government heaps in terms of manually checking paper-work and entering figures.
      • This is why I don't e-file. Despite being a card carrying geek, electronic is not always better. I won't be e-filing unless it provides me with an advantage over paper filing. Since I don't get a refund, the earlier refund wouldn't count for me. Since an electronic return would definitely be cheaper for the IRS to process (no need for a data entry drone), they should give a discount to those who e-file. Then I might actually consider doing it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Well this story would be interesting, if it weren't for the fact that people are willingly trusting the companies in question with their personal information. When Intuit asks for your SSN to prepare your return, it isn't exactly covert. If you don't trust them not to disclose it to other companies, then you should probably stop before this step.

      Yeah, they use third party web bugs, but they say that they don't send those bugs your private data. If you don't believe them when they say this, see above.

  • Try to hack this... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by kwoo ( 641864 )

    A HP48GX and a #2 pencil. Straight into the envelope.

    It's slower than an e-file, but far more anonymous, providing you don't put a return address on the envelope.

  • END OF THE WORLD IS NEAR! (Score:5, Informative)

    by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:27PM (#12230089) Journal
    "We could capture your name, your Social Security number or any other information that you willingly pass to a Web site," acknowledged Matt Belkin, who serves as vice president of best practices for Utah marketing giant Omniture, which tracks the online activities of people using Intuit's TurboTax.

    But he said Omniture doesn't do this. The reason, he said, is that client companies don't authorize Omniture to do it.

    Yes they *can*, but do they? *no*
    • remember - the US is only a small percentage of the world. So no where close to universal mark-of-the-beast coverage, if you are only counting US citizens.

      It cracks me up, everytime my fellow Americans ramble on about this mark of the beast stuff. Even if ALL Americans did X, there are still BILLIONS of others NOT doing X.

  • National sales tax now (Score:3, Insightful)

    by panxerox ( 575545 ) * on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:28PM (#12230090)
    Its time to crush this 30 year old unholy alliance between the IRS and the 3 party tax prep companys. The tax system has become like the legal system - a systematic exploitation of the American people to keep an elite in business, in this case IRS agents and retired IRS agents.

    • Its time to crush this 30 year old unholy alliance between the IRS and the 3 party tax prep companys.

      What does a national sales tax vs. a national income tax have to do with 3rd party tax prep companies? Seriously! If you don't want a 3rd party company doing your taxes, just do them yourself. It's not hard, just a little time consuming. As an aside on a national sales tax, a recent issue of The Onion [theonion.com] said it best,

      As an incredibly wealthy man who spends almost nothing, I wholeheartedly endorse the

    • Re:National sales tax now (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:40PM (#12230184)
      tax system has become like the legal system - a systematic exploitation of the American people to keep an elite in business, in this case IRS agents and retired IRS agents.

      Except, all they do is function to collect what the tax code says they should. Don't like it? You have to change the law. Fix it in congress, thus treating the problem, not the symptom.
      • You have to change the law. Fix it in congress, thus treating the problem, not the symptom.

        Congress? You mean that other entity that systematically exploits American people to keep elites in business?

    • Re:National sales tax now (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Quarters ( 18322 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:48PM (#12230245)
      A national sales tax is the most regressive form of taxation imaginable. The tax system now is (mostly) fair. Everyone pays a % of their earnings.

      The problem with a national sales tax is that middle to low income earners spend a larger percentage of their earnings. Upper class earners spend a much smaller percentage of their wages. A national sales tax would hurt low wage earners the most as they would be using the majority of their wages on food & basic necessities. The little $ they might have left after their purchases and their tax burden won't be enough for an adequate savings.

      • Sales tax NOT regressive (Score:5, Informative)

        by XanC ( 644172 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @10:00PM (#12230331)
        The current plan for a national retail sales tax calls for everyone, everyone, to receive a "pre-bate" for necessities. It's tied to the poverty line.

        So nobody pays tax on necessities. From there, the more you buy, the more you pay. It's progressive without having to treat people differently under the law.

        • In many countries there is a national sales tax and they do have exceptions for necessities and alot of little strange little rules around this. If you want to simplify taxes, this is not the way to go. If you want to reduce taxes, this is not the way to go.

          For example, here in Canada we have the GST. The exceptions are;
          http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/business/gstgu i des/rc 4045/rc4045-e.html
          So notice that full sized pies are not taxed but single servings are. And I'm sure that other countries have rules

        • Re:Sales tax NOT regressive (Score:5, Insightful)

          by daigu ( 111684 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @12:07AM (#12230913) Journal

          Progressive tax, by definition, is a tax the has different rates based on total income. Thus, a sales tax is not progressive. It's a regressive tax.

          A regressive tax, in contrast, is a tax that takes a larger percentage of the income of low-income people than of high-income people.

          Example: If I make $1,000,000 a year, and you make $75,000. If we both spend $75,000 on however we define sales, we both have to pay the same in taxes. You are being taxed on 100% of your income. I am being taxed on only .075% of mine.

          While a regressive tax such as this one that is focused on consumption has benefits, it does not help address income inequities or have any built in system that recognizes the responsibility of people in fortunate circumstnaces have to the larger society and for people not as well off as they are - such as those that make below the poverty line.

          • I can't imagine how Oregonians would react to a national sales tax. We've rejected a state sales tax (pushed by most out-of-state non-citizen political groups) EIGHT TIMES now; and the last time it came to a vote it was so clearly the brainchild of non-Oregonian special interests that our legislators received quite a few threats should they think about putting the tax to a vote a ninth time. Needless to say the sales tax hasn't been referred to the polls since then.

            I wonder how the citizens of the state

      • Re:National sales tax now (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Jacked ( 785403 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @10:35PM (#12230516)
        The tax system now is (mostly) fair. Everyone pays a % of their earnings.

        Hardly. Not everyone pays a percentage. Almost half the workers in the U.S. pay no income tax at all. And, in fact, they get quite a sweetheart deal -- many of those people get a "refund" which is far larger than the amount that was witheld in the first place (refundable credits).

        The problem with a national sales tax is that middle to low income earners spend a larger percentage of their earnings. Upper class earners spend a much smaller percentage of their wages. A national sales tax would hurt low wage earners the most as they would be using the majority of their wages on food & basic necessities. The little $ they might have left after their purchases and their tax burden won't be enough for an adequate savings.

        It's been my experience that most upper class earners spend virtually everything they earn. They might spend a slightly smaller amount as a percentage of their income, but, 85% of $200,000 is a lot more real dollars than 95% of $25,000. Admittedly, I pulled those numbers out of my ass, they're just for illustration purposes ;)

        As structured in H.R. 25, everyone gets a monthly check to prevent exactly what you describe. It's actually a pretty well thought-out plan. You can read more about it at http://fairtax.org/ [fairtax.org].

      • Not to mention the fact that the rich can avoid a large portion of that sales tax by shopping in another country. For instance, instead of buying their new wardrobe in New York, they could do it in Paris instead. Similarly for cars, they could buy it in Canada and hire somebody to drive it to the US.
      • while I agree with you on a sales tax being regressive, the current tax system is still unfair. Those with a lot of money already, perhaps from inheritance (Paris Hilton, anyone?) only pay taxes on their interest, and can mostly get out of that tax too.

        The current talk about repealing the inheritance tax is ludicrous. It's the only tax the Paris Hiltons of the world pay at all. Look at it like this: while Daddy worked his ass off, paid his taxes on his earnings, and received the benefits of those taxe

        • Re:National sales tax now (Score:4, Insightful)

          by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @12:12AM (#12230933) Homepage Journal
          "Now she gets all the benefits of that military and police protection, the roads, the schools, etc, but doesn't have to pay for any of it!"

          Uh... if they recieved an inheritance, and that money had already had its taxes paid on, then they already have paid for it. It's money changing hands, not money suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

          • Re:National sales tax now (Score:4, Insightful)

            by EzInKy ( 115248 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @01:26AM (#12231211)
            Uh... if they recieved an inheritance, and that money had already had its taxes paid on, then they already have paid for it. It's money changing hands, not money suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

            That money is not going towards paying for ongoing maintenance. Without inhertance and property taxes the burden falls solely on the backs of current wage earners.
      • Considering rich people tend to buy more stuff and generally stick to more expensive items, they will pay a lot more in sales taxes than a middle class or poor person buying mostly essentials. Most states, cities or countries with a sales tax exempt food and other essentials from sales taxes or give a yearly credit for money spent on essentials. Other than putting a lot of tax professionals out of work, I don't see what is wrong with this plan. Getting the government out of peoples' financial lives is hardl
    • Its time to crush this 30 year old unholy alliance between the IRS and the 3 party tax prep companys. The tax system has become like the legal system - a systematic exploitation of the American people to keep an elite in business, in this case IRS agents and retired IRS agents.

      The national sales tax has nothing to do with third party tax preperation services.

      If you want to fix the tax system, how about closing the loopholes the rich use? Wouldn't that be a better place to start. To remove their tax s

  • Identity theft is really becoming more of institution these days. So much information is out there, so quickly can someone hijack someone's life and such a pain in the ass it is to reclaim it. How much of a problem will this have to become before the laws change and identity is more easily secured? Can this be done without some sort of national privacy-killing registry?
    • Yes! It is simple. The credit reporting agencies can continue doing what they are with regards to credit checks, however one more step needs to be added into the process. Everyone needs to choose a prefered CRA. The reason for this is simple. You build a relationship with that company and when someone wants to open up a line of credit, report a COA (change of address), they must ask the CRA for permission. The CRA then contacts you to verify that change/credit request and if the lender does not, you the bor

  • Slashdot vs. Major Media Outlet (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:28PM (#12230096)
    So, on Slashdot, everyone will complain about the obvious privacy issues of having your personal information given away for marketing purposes. And, that's it. Now, if a Major Media Outlet were to carry this story, say, Reuters, then you would hear about it on NPR, you'd see it on ABC, and you'd read it in the New York Times. And it would be illegal in two months for these assholes to share your personal information while you trust them to do something as simple as file your taxes electronically. Of course, the Reuters author would have to write it up with a pro-consumer spin. It would have to cry privacy violation in every sentence.
    • So, on Slashdot, everyone will complain about the obvious privacy issues of having your personal information given away for marketing purposes. And, that's it. Now, if a Major Media Outlet were to carry this story, say, Reuters, then you would hear about it on NPR, you'd see it on ABC, and you'd read it in the New York Times. And it would be illegal in two months for these assholes to share your personal information while you trust them to do something as simple as file your taxes electronically. Of course,

  • trust us! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by chocochip ( 456883 ) <[ten.tsacmoc] [ta] [trautsds]> on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:28PM (#12230098)
    "You've just got to trust us," Miller replied, adding that "if we didn't uphold our privacy commitment, we wouldn't be here."

    Yeahhh, I'm gonna say no!

  • Trusting Intuit is insane. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ph33r th3 g(O)at ( 592622 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:28PM (#12230101)
    Quicken used to be an excellent product around 1997 or so. But then they started adding in-program spam and call home features. And that's when I stopped upgrading.

  • Read the fine print for your savings and checking (Score:5, Interesting)

    by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:31PM (#12230121) Journal
    They already share your information, and it is done by your bank. Banks make good money selling your financial information to "related buisnesses". And there is no way to opt-out. Don't want to have us sell your social security number and financial data? Then we won't open a savings account for you. What can you do? Stuff your mattress with money?

    People have no rights anymore because buisnesses stopped thinking about serving you. They now look at aggregates. You have become an after-thought on someones spreadsheet. We have 10,000 customers. We lose 50 this month because they don't like us sharing their information. But we get 500 new accounts from our marketing blitz. The bank is going to say it isn't worth their time to deal with 50 unhappy customers when an advertisment can bring in more customers.

    BTW, this is unrelated to this story, but I need help and I have to ask (since all the smart people hang out at slashdot, and I don't know the ipa to any forus to ask). My damn internet connection is not working right. I can't get to yahoo.com, but if i type in the ip address, i get there. What the hell is wrong?

    • That would be your DNS. Make sure you've got the right servers registered, in your network settings. There are some public DNS servers out there too, I think. Damn, I'm really replying to this when I don't know what I'm talking about. Of course, that's the danger in asking such an offopic question is such a public forum.
      • That would be your DNS. Make sure you've got the right servers registered, in your network settings. There are some public DNS servers out there too, I think. Damn, I'm really replying to this when I don't know what I'm talking about. Of course, that's the danger in asking such an offopic question is such a public forum

        I figured it is DNS. I was able to get google, and since I can't connect to any website, I was using their cache. It appears Comcast has some hackers attacking them, they are calling it "p

    • They can only get away with this because they haven't been called out on the carpet for it. Single a bank out and make sure all the bloggers get the word. Eventually the news will filter to the MSM that "Bank XYZ" is selling customers' info. Even if they all are doing it, the other banks will get the message that they're next. If the pressure is strong enough, you can get them to change...all it takes is one bank to give in and the rest will follow suit to compete.

    • Re:Read the fine print for your savings and checki (Score:5, Informative)

      by ms139us ( 723585 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @10:06PM (#12230371)
      Banks make good money selling your financial information to "related buisnesses".

      Sorry to burst your bubble. I work closely with dozens of banks and credit unions on this very topic. GLB [ftc.gov] inspires more neurotic fear in bankers than anything else I have seen in some time.

      By the way, "related businness" means sharing information with other companies that must be there to support the bank, like disaster recovery companies, records archiving companies, etc.

      Whether or not you believe it, "related businesses" simply cannot use your information for anything other than performing their service for the bank.

      The closest a bank can get to profiting from your personal information is using it to offer services. A bank may notice that you have a high credit card balance and offer you a HELOC, it may notice that you have a high savings balance and offer its CDs, it may notice that your car loan is getting paid down and offer a pre-approved loan for a newer car, etc.

      Other than that, your information is strictly off limits.
    • You must have Comcast. They always give out DNS server IP addresses with their DHCP leases, but the DNS servers they tell you to use stop functioning on a weekly basis. Since I'm in Indiana, I use the following DNS servers instead:

      128.210.11.5 (ns.purdue.edu)
      128.174.5.6 (ns.uiuc.edu)

      You may want to use some closer to you, but these should get you up and running, at least.

  • Bad reasoning for not capturing SSNs...... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xiaomonkey ( 872442 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:33PM (#12230128)
    From the article: But he said Omniture doesn't do this. The reason, he said, is that client companies don't authorize Omniture to do it.

    So, is he saying that given the opportunity to capture this information, his company would? Semi-distrubing. What about not caputuring this information since it would be wrong to do so? Particulary with recent problems with identity theft.

    -

  • Turbo Tax "web" version or (Score:4, Insightful)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:33PM (#12230129)
    the boxed version? The article doesn't appear to say and I'm not quite sure why "web bugs" would be used to collect data on the boxed version. (y'know, like... when you could just capture the keystrokes?)
    • "Julie Miller, an Intuit spokeswoman, said hundreds of thousands of returns are typically submitted daily during the last few days before each year's deadline (which is Friday, for those of you in deep denial).

      The company is offering its Free File program at taxfreedom.com. Nowhere on the welcoming screen or at any point in the filing process is it disclosed that Web bugs are being used. "

      The implication being this is their "web" client. Not the boxed one.

      (Not that my data is anymore safe.. Quicken like
    • The article says that this relates to the IRS Free File program, which means it's TurboTax for the Web, not the boxed version.
  • The real question lately is, where isn't your tax information going?

  • RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by firephreek ( 752523 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:35PM (#12230149)
    The /. article is totally misleading. Makes it sound like Intuit is actively tracking the actual returns and trying to compile info on the users, not just tracking and compiling the user process. Until there's something shown that the tracking is done beyond the site, I'm gonna reserve judgement.

    If you're gonna get the tin hats out for this, then don't forget that Intuit also makes and sells the number one financial tool for not just businesses, but also personal finances. Quicken and Quickbooks. They don't need your tax return information. All your bank accounts are belong to Intuit. If they wanted to track your buying habits, the checking history of hundreds of thousands of individuals is at their fingertips.
  • I switched to TaxCut when Intuit tried that crap a few years ago writing things in places on the HD that could screw up a Linux install. I had the option again this year and thought, nope, I'm still not happy with them.

  • Ugh...... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Alcimedes ( 398213 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:36PM (#12230160)
    So what's in place to keep a dishonest employee from gathering more information than they should and turning around and selling it to ID thieves?

    If identity theft is supposed to be as big of a business as we're told, you'd think that getting a few moles inside these companies would be a top priority.

    You'd know the person's income, what they purchased, address etc. That data would be worth a fortune to theives, and there's zero legitimate marketing purpose to them having my SS#.

    • Re:Ugh...... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by loraksus ( 171574 )
      Nothing. I "worked" at TaxCut last year (to not use quotes would imply that after 10am everyone in my cube wasn't so shitfaced that they had trouble walking to the cafeteria for food, let alone actually go through any work). Interesting times.

      Every $8/hour agent has access to every return e-filed by HR Block (not just taxcut) - since 1999 at the click of the mouse. No oversight whatsoever and turnover was very high because the job quite frankly sucked for the PC phone people. They constantly had at least 3

  • IRS position (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NoseBag ( 243097 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:40PM (#12230188)
    Actually, the IRS position is a smart one. Basically they are saying "Until it gets to us (e-mail or snail mail or whatever) we have no knowledge of it, or its journey, or what happened to it between you and us."

    That's fair, damn it.

    The issue is with the go-betweens. I say - take 'em to court and smoke 'em.
    • The issue is with the go-betweens. I say - take 'em to court and smoke 'em.

      For what? For having the ability to capture information going through their system? If that's enough to take them to court, then your ISP had better be in the dock right next to them because they have that ability too. There's nothing in the article that you obviously didn't read to say that anybody's actually doing this. FUD and nothing else and you, like most slashdotters, fell for it hook, line and sinker.

  • Once I bought a VISA gift card at AAA(that travel place), and they got my social security number and a month or so later I got a freaking cell phone bill in the mail for a phone I didn't even have. Turns out one of the employees there took the number and somehow used it to get a damn cell phone for his friend....I guess you really can't trust anybody.

  • Attention, obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

    by taylortbb ( 759869 ) <taylor.byrnes@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:53PM (#12230274) Homepage
    I think any web surfer with basic internet knowledge knows that servers can tell what pages you visit, of course, they are afterall giving you the information. If most users find this surprising they should know what else goes on.

    Can you trust the person sorting your mail not to open it? about as much as you can trust Intuit, however as soon as its online everyone gets freaked out.

    As soon as you let someone else transmit your personal information this can happen. When you submit a form containing your SSN (social security number) the person on the recieving end or anyone in transit can read it, be the form HTML or paper.

    Anyone sorting real world mail could open a letter and read it. Any company sending your data over the web could read the data you are sending them, well, of course, you're sending it to them for a reason.

    Could a marketing company get people to infiltrate the post office and steal random letters to examine content? of course. Could a marketing company forcefully aquire data (via hacking, etc.) online? of course. But now its much harder, the data is encrypted.

    Unfourtunatly most average consumers don't read /., but for anyone that reads this, *your computer is more secure, just because its in the real world doesn't mean it can't happen, and in the computer world there is cryptographically secure prevention*. People steals cars, break into houses, and commit fraud without computers all the time, don't be afraid of your computer, or stuff online.

    (For those who are going to attack me because the article isn't about hacking, the only way for the marketing companies to get data is hacking, Intuit is *not* going to share that info. Either a or b is true: a) its against privacy laws, paper or internet. b) they could do it with your paper forms too, making it a moot point.)
  • The article doesn't come right out and say it, but this is regarding their web-based filing. When I first read the title, I thought that it was for their CD-based package.

    The problem is that at least web information can be caught since most of that information is captured and retrieved through cookies. Unfortunately, this article makes me even more suspect about their CD-based software. You know, the one with CD-illa (2003 tax year) that didn't uninstall properly? We can track and delete cookies.

  • oops (Score:5, Funny)

    by flynt ( 248848 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @09:57PM (#12230304)
    Wow it's April 15th on Friday, lucky I read Slashdot!

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @10:01PM (#12230334)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I hope a lot of this goes into some statistics that show how overtaxed we are. We being us here Canadians.

  • And here's a possible scenario.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by i_want_you_to_throw_ ( 559379 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @10:05PM (#12230363) Journal
    Intuit notices that you trade a lot of stock. Merrill-Lynch agrees to pay Intuit .20 for every prospective customer lead given to them and will up it to .30 if they are not already a Merrill customer.

    There's lotsa gold in them thar data mines.

    CRS/GDS companies like SABRE/Worldspan/Apollo, etc do it all the time now. ( I worked for SABRE as a developer for several years )United Airlines gives SABRE a fee for every lead they give them for customers that have flown into ski resorts. More money per lead if these folks have done it more than one year. If they flew someone besides United, then United sends them a coupon for X% off their next flight to said ski resort destination city.

    And who else pays for this data? Why the ski resorts themselves! Look for the trend and if you appear to be an outdoorsy type then maybe Jeep will send you a coupon for a special deal from one of their dealers.
  • We could capture your name, your Social Security number or any other information that you willingly pass to a Web site,

    blah blah blah

    But he said Omniture doesn't do this. The reason, he said, is that client companies don't authorize Omniture to do it.

    What they can do and what they do are very different.

    Nothing but FUD, move along.
  • straight from the point of a mechanical pencil to the white boxes on the tax form.

    tried doing my taxes on the confuser back before they stopped supporting nt 4.0, and frankly, it took three times as long and wasn't any less enraging.

    maybe next year, assuming there is a straight unencumbered download of free software directly from the irs that runs on osX, uses no third party crap whatsoever, doesn't intercommunicate on the web until the encrypted data goes out, and that only to one identified site and por
  • And yet their online tax software is awesome. This year I've compared it with TaxCut, and at least TaxCut's online offering can't even touch TurboTax Online. Heck, you can even go through entire TT Online in Firefox! And it spits out a PDF for you in the end. It's more convenient and better thought out. Highly recommended.

    And no, I'm not a Quicken user and I don't work for Intuit.

  • I took a quick look at Intuit's web site (Score:5, Informative)

    by rifftide ( 679288 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @10:33PM (#12230500)
    Here's a relevant portion of their personal account login page:
    <noscript>
    <a href="http://www.shop.intuit.com/;jsessionid=ULNOD HLNVG4HOCQIBMVR3KQKBAFSOF4K">
    <img src="http://ct.intuit.com/cgi-bin/ctasp-server.cgi ?i=Wc2mzatwkBvfVzl3&i=igjdl2giGjlvwcMn&g=1" alt="Web Analytics" border=0>
    </a>
    </noscript>
    This HTML is active if scripting is disabled in your browser. There's also a corresponding block of code within a SCRIPT tag that does the same thing when scripting is enabled. I would've included that, but I couldn't get it past the /. lameness filter.

    What it does is ask the server for an image (JPEG or GIF). But this request actually triggers a CGI program on the server side, passing it a unique session identifier that was served in the original page. The CGI app on Intuit's side most likely relays the request to the tracking company's server for logging. Cute, huh?

    Since I'm not a customer, I didn't go past the login page. But it would be interesting to examine the analytics code served up in the account management pages - perhaps they pass not only the session identifier, but form values as well. (The analytics script could be triggered after the user hits the submit button, for instance). This may have been the point Omniture's CEO was making when he said that he could get customer's SSNs and salary data if he wanted to. Hopefully, there is a negotiation between Intuit and the web analytics firm about what customer information will be tracked, and procedures in place to verify that the analytics portion of the HTML does not collect more information than agreed upon.

    Maybe someone with an account at Intuit should take a closer look at the page sources to see what parameters are being passed to the analytics server while you're managing your money.

  • this is illegal (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @10:40PM (#12230536)
    Dissemination of your personal information without EXPLICIT voluntary consent is clearly against the law. I hope someone is smart enough and will sue the hell out of them.

  • Offtopic, but I gotta vent (Score:3, Insightful)

    by qengho ( 54305 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @10:45PM (#12230569)

    I've never used Intuit's products, but I've hated them since the mid-90s when they made a corporate decision, under the leadership of Bill Campbell, to blow off their Mac user base. "Want new features? Use Windows." Punks. So I guess it's not really surprising that they're screwing over their current customer base like this.

    For some reason Apple decided to put Campbell on its board of directors, despite his demonstrated inimicality (yes, that's a word) [bibliomania.com]. I own a fair amount of AAPL, and every year I mark my proxy to withhold my votes for that SOB. Sadly, he keeps getting re-elected. Oh well.

    Thanks for listening.

    • Well, it doesn't look to me like owners of the Mac edition of Quicken 2005 are too pleased with the product either.

      They may be once again "supporting the Mac" with their products, but it's half-baked.

      I've been a Quicken user for keeping track of my checking and credit card accts. for years, and I recently migrated over to my Mac from Windows. (Mainly because I figure Windows has too many security risks like spyware apps that might potentially be able to upload my Quicken data someplace.)

      I'm disappointed

  • IRS Invasion of Privatization (Score:3, Informative)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @10:55PM (#12230618) Homepage Journal
    The IRS is now outsourcing tax debt collection to regular collection corporations [chron.com]. Last time they piloted this program, it lost the government money. Imagine how much more this will lose, when some of our most confidential info gets "lost" into the blackhatsphere.

  • Yawn!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AstroDrabb ( 534369 ) * on Wednesday April 13, 2005 @11:15PM (#12230715)
    This is total media hype. This whole thing is just about some cookies to track web usage. No big deal. I filed my taxes this year on-line with Intuit using Firefox (under Linux, even though TurboTax said I wasn't using a supported OS. I changed the UA to Firefox WinXP and TurboTax didn't complain again). Under my Firefox preferences, I set my cookie options to "ask me every time". This way, the first time a site/servername tries to set a cookie, Firefox prompts me and I can tell Firefox to "always accept" or "never accept". When I did my taxes with Intuit, I noticed non-turbo tax cookies trying to be set. I just told Firefoxt to "always deny" those cookies and to "always allow" the cookies from turbotax. I had no problems doing my taxes after that with TurboTax online.

    Just use Firefox for all of your web browsing and most of your privacy issues will go away. In FF, just go into your preferences/options under security -> cookies and set that to "ask me everytime" and your good to go.

  • That's weird (Score:3, Informative)

    by wiresquire ( 457486 ) on Thursday April 14, 2005 @05:58AM (#12231919) Journal
    from http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118991,00.h tml [irs.gov]

    Your tax information and data will be protected -- Privacy and Security concerns

    * Tax return preparation is accomplished using proprietary software approved by the IRS; transmittal is through the established IRS e-file system.
    * Each company must attain a third party privacy and security certification.
    * Alliance companies must comply with all federal rules and regulations on taxpayer privacy for paying and free customers. These rules prohibit use of tax return data for purposes not specifically authorized by the taxpayer.
    * The IRS monitors the progress of each of the companies. If any problems develop, the companies are required to alert the IRS. If appropriate, the IRS will remove the company from the IRS.gov site until the problem is resolved.
    * For more information about IRS Privacy, please visit the IRS Privacy Policy.

    I guess you need to read the fine print on what those company's can do with your info

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