Posted on 11/27/2022 4:55:15 AM PST by EBH
Several tax prep services have been found sending sensitive financial information to Meta, including people’s income, filing status, and even amounts won in college scholarships.
The information comes via an investigative report from The Markup, which claims that Meta Pixel implementation in tax filing services has led to unintended data collection on Meta's part.
Meta Pixel is a piece of Javascript code created by Meta that lets companies track user activity as a way to “measure the effectiveness of [ads and the design]” of their websites. As it turns out, way more information than user activity was being sent, and all without user consent. Names of filers, dependents, email addresses, and in some cases, phone numbers were among the leaked financial data. And it doesn't matter if those users didn’t have an account on any Meta-owned platform. Meta can still use this data to bolster its own advertising algorithm, according to the report.
Google was also implicated in the report, but that situation appears less dire. A Google spokesperson states the data collected is all jumbled and can’t be tied to a specific person.
According to Meta’s own help center page, the tech giant prohibits other companies from sending financial data; however, information on people’s income was still received. Tax filing services did give users the “option to decline to share tax information”, but that didn’t matter because, again, the data was still sent and received.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
And it did not matter if you are on FB or not. It still was sent due to the FB Pixel.
These large companies should know American attorneys are avaricious.
Sounds like illegal disclosure of tax info. That is a criminal matter. Maybe if the IRS was less involved in chasing organizations like the tea party they would look into this.
So it comes in scrambled and goes out scrambled? and the payers for that data find value in scrambled data? C'mon Cesar Cadenas, did you just walk across the border and your ears are still wet, or are you really that stupid?
This is intentional. Software doesn’t just decide to do something it wasn’t programmed to do. People must go to jail for this. But won’t.
I use TaxAct but for some reason I could never get it to e-file my returns. I use the desktop versions not the online versions. Maybe I have a good firewall, or a crappy computer. Doesn’t mean that the silicon scum didn’t get the data though.
Yeah, but if they get word from the Democrats that a target entity (like Meta) is a member in good standing of the Grifters League they will back off out of professional courtesy. :)
Capital punishment is too good for this crime.
All of these programs have end user agreements. Maybe buried deep in the agreement there’s something like this: User agrees to let company send user data to third parties.
That wouldn’t make it morally right, of course. But it might provide enough legal cover for the companies.
JavaScript. Again.
Be nice if real a congress would pass a privacy act where no personal information could be used without the written consent of the individual not the individual requesting every damn company, organization etc not using it and then using it anyway.
EBH -
Where did you find the list names of the software titles that are involved with this? I didn’t see any in the article (but I may have missed them).
Are there any software titles (such as TurboTax or JacksonHewitt) that are definitely not involved with this?
So, we found the people in charge of vote counting!
You missed them. They are in the article at the link.
You have to go to the link as this is a required excerpt for FR.
JavaScript and Java are the top two languages for apps, right?
I didn’t see any mention of TurboTax or JacksonHewitt specifically.
I don’t know what’s being used today, but JavaScript used to be known as one of the virus-writer’s best friends.
Gotcha, thanks.
I learned some C and VBA about a decade ago.
I’m starting to re learn VBA for data modeling in Excel.
Thank you!
Tax filing software caught
SUV ran over people
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.