Tax Program Develops An Insulting Approach - TurboTax installs Spyware

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Thursday, January 30, 2003 | WALTER S. MOSSBERG

[TroutStalker]

The top two software packages for tax preparation have been largely static in their core features and user interfaces for years, but you'll notice a new attitude toward customers from one of the publishers this time around.

The programs are nearly identical, and in my annual reviews of H&R Block's TaxCut and TurboTax by Intuit I have mainly noted changes in ancillary features, and in the proliferation of various editions and versions that seem inspired more by marketing than by functionality.

[newgeezer]

TaxCut has always been the better product.

This spyware thing is just the latest in a long line of glitches and gotchas in the lousy history of Turbo Tax.

[Poohbah]

You're right.

If I owned Intuit, I'd make proper functioning of the program dependent on it not being pirated--but I'd let the user operate it anyway. You can stick all manner of subtle bugs into the program that activate if the registration doesn't match up...

Let the pirates wonder why the IRS is hitting them for an audit, back taxes, and penalties...

[Sir Gawain]

Taxcut sells your personal information to unrelated companies.

[George W. Bush]

Oh, please. Do you actually think real pirates with financial assets are stupid enough to run the pirated software themselves?

Buy a clue.

[Poohbah]

Oh, please. Do you actually think real pirates with financial assets are stupid enough to run the pirated software themselves?

SOMEONE is running pirated software, and doing his taxes with it...if not the pirate, then who is it?

[George W. Bush]

Rubes. Cannon fodder in the copyright wars.

Before you start whining: no one made them download it, did they?

[Sir Gawain]

http://www.taxcut.com/privacy/index.html

Information We Collect

We may collect information about you as follows:

• information we receive from your transactions with us and our affiliates, including account information, such as your name and address, and tax return data, such as your income, deductions, and social security number. We obtain tax return data through your use of TaxCut software only if you electronically file your tax return.
• information you provide to us to on applications, surveys, rebate forms, technical support inquiries, and in connection with warranty claims, tax chats, polls, software registration, contests or incentive programs, such as your name, address, e-mail address, system information and configuration, account number and demographic information.
• credit or debit card information, such as card number and card expiration date, when you purchase goods or services on our site or from within our software.
• information from your browser or computer, when you visit the Web sites relating to H&R Block software offerings, use links from within our software in connection with your browser, or when you register your software. We also may collect information through Internet cookies and other technologies, such as referring pages, Internet protocol address, pages visited and time spent on our site. The information we collect is used to enhance and improve your experience on our site.

Information We May Disclose.

H&R Block Affiliates. We may disclose any information we collect to our H&R Block affiliates, to provide financial services, such as banking, insurance, mortgages and investment services. We do not disclose information from your tax return to our affiliates without your express consent.

Other Third Parties. We may disclose your name, address, email address, along with demographic, computer system, or lifestyle information we collect through software warranty registration to select third parties, including non-financial companies, such as direct marketers and retailers and financial companies, such as insurance companies. We do not disclose information from your tax return to these third parties. You may opt-out of these disclosures by following the procedures set forth below under the heading "How You Can Control the Use or Disclosure of Your Information", or by designating your preferences during the registration process.

Service Providers. We may disclose any information we collect to service providers to perform a service for us or perform a function on our behalf, or financial institutions with whom we have joint marketing agreements. Service providers may also collect such information on our behalf. Examples could include, without limitation, processing contest entry forms, processing warranty claims, collating letters, managing information through Internet cookies or other technologies, or sending e-mails on our behalf. In cases where we use service providers or joint marketers, we restrict such parties from using your nonpublic personal information except to act on our behalf or as required or permitted by law.

Other Disclosures We may make other disclosures of any information we collect to affiliated and non-affiliated third parties as required or permitted by law. Such disclosures may include, without limitation, disclosures that you expressly request us to make, to effect or process electronic refund advance loans or other products or services that you obtain from us, to comply with a subpoena or other court or government agency order, or made in the event of a sale or transfer of our business or assets.

You may have additional rights under state laws, and this Privacy Statement does not limit those rights. Information we may post about these state laws after the date you acquire the software can be found at www.taxcut.com/privacy.

[newgeezer]

Taxcut sells your personal information to unrelated companies.

You have reason to believe Intuit doesn't?

All the buyer gets -- if I register the product -- is my name, my address, and space in my recycle bin. Big deal.

[gatex]

TurboTax failed to send me the $10 rebate last year -- and then returned as "undeliverable" my second request. I was already peeved, since they were offering me a direct order, as an old customer, at $10 more than I could buy TurboTax two weeks later at Office Depot.

This year I bought Tax Cut ---the box says "seamless imports from TurboTax, Quicken, and Money."

[Poohbah]

Yup. You got that right.

And some of the folks who downloaded it and got burned might very well decide that the hacker needs a lesson.

You aren't bulletproof in cyberspace.

[Sir Gawain]

You have reason to believe Intuit doesn't?

No, I'm not pro-Turbo Tax.

All the buyer gets -- if I register the product -- is my name, my address, and space in my recycle bin.

Are you sure? Read the privacy policy I just posted.

[Arthalion]

I've used Turbotax for 10 years but, after reading up on Intuits new antipiracy measures, skipped on it this year and decided to try TaxCut (I'm a computer programmer, and I firmly believe that software should make your life EASIER...Intuit seems to have forgotten that).

Like you, I was a bit worried about having to re-learn everything. That worry, it turned out, was misplaced. The interfaces are nearly identical. They could have easily been designed by the same team, or the same person, they are so alike. There was NO learning curve to TaxCut. Although help and instructions were always one click away, I found that I never needed them.

Also, like you, my tax returns tend to be fairly complex and I wasn't looking forward to starting over. That also turned out to be a misplaced worry. TaxCut imported my TurboTax 2001 data without any difficulty, and prepopulated most of the return.

So TaxCut is cheaper, it's identical in both interface and features, it doesn't assume you're a criminal, and I can legally lend it to family members and help them with their taxes. Sounds like TaxCut is the better product to me, and they've got a new loyal customer here.

[George W. Bush]

You aren't bulletproof in cyberspace.

Ah, but I'm not doing it. I'm merely explaining to you how it works in the larger scheme of things.

I have never been a warez distributor. I think some people are annoyed that I'm not. But I'll help people to do it if that's what they want. And I'll help them to avoid becoming a high-profile target.

Sue me.

[newgeezer]

Read the privacy policy I just posted.

Done. Thanks.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

I think you can option to not install the safecast too. I think it is optional from talking to people who have used it.

[Poohbah]

I have never been a warez distributor. I think some people are annoyed that I'm not. But I'll help people to do it if that's what they want. And I'll help them to avoid becoming a high-profile target.

Ah, you'll aid and abet...

And, BTW, you aren't bulletproof in cyberspace, either. You willing to play Horatio at the gate to keep some pimply-faced teenage slacker out of prison? You willing to become Spike and Bubba's cell-b!tch for that?

I doubt it...

[stainlessbanner]

bttt

[Sir Gawain]

I've read where C-Dilla actually disables your CD burner on occassion when its copy protection routine kicks in and thinks you're burning pirated software--not just TurboTax.

[Arthalion]

According to that privacy policy, TaxCut DOES NOT sell ANY of the information on your tax return under any circumstances, to anybody. The only information they sell if the software registration information you provide, and even then it is sold ONLY if you check the boxes giving them permission to do so. TaxCut actually has one of the better privacy policies around.

[Sir Gawain]

I never said it sold info from your tax return.