Comment by vel0city
7 months ago
Their privacy policy directly states they don't sell user data.
https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/...
But even then, assuming "they'll just sell it anyways", most of that information exists with other orgs anyways that could just as easily just sell it anyways. If I don't trust Intuit, why would I trust ADP or whoever my bank is to not sell my data either?
But sure, I agree, using any third party to file your taxes exposes you to that risk of yet another party potentially leaking/selling data. Once again though, to me that trade off of 14 more hours with my kids versus someone knowing what I paid in mortgage interest last year is pretty OK to me. Data brokers could just glean that same kind of useful information it means through the thousands of other things tracking me anyways.
> Their privacy policy directly states they don't sell user data.
unless you happen to click "OK" on one of the deceptive prompts TurboTax will show you while preparing your taxes.
Given that DOGE is currently "cleaning up" the IRS, I figure it's only a matter of time before America invites "trusted commercial partners" to "analyze citizen data" for a "more efficient" auditing process.
It's about reducing the burden on taxpaying Americans, or something like that.
They did that last week.
Palantir got the contract and estimates it’ll take a month to index all the IRS data, rip out the access controls and slap a nice search gui on top.
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> I figure it's only a matter of time before America invites "trusted commercial partners" to "analyze citizen data" for a "more efficient" auditing process
No need to partner with the IRS, the DOGE dudes have an external drives in a sock drawer at home, ready for their next Fintech startup. For reasons attributed to "world class algorithms" the Fintech will be preternaturally good at targeting financial services to individuals, and assessing credit-worthiness given nothing but a name and zip code...
I too would work for "free" to gain access to that valuable data. If I didn't have a half-decent moral compass.
I always wondered if “we won’t sell your data” means literally just that. They promise they won’t sell it but, what’s stopping them from giving it away for free? Moreover, they could establish another company, give them data for free, and that second company sells it.