[dpwiener]

Nice work, Daniel! A real one-man FReeping.

Thank you. I have so far gotten back very polite replies from Bob Meighan (Vice President, Tax Development, Consumer Tax Group), Brooks Fisher (Vice President, Vertical Strategy and Integration), and Steve Bennett (President and CEO). Bob Meighan's response was particularly detailed and extensive.

I'm not going to publically post our email exchanges, since I had not indicated to them ahead of time that I might do so.

If people disagree with Intuit's actions, it is important that they communicate that fact (and their reasons) to Intuit. After all, how can we hope or expect a company to correct a mistake unless it receives adequate feedback? Even if the sales of Turbo Tax suffer this year, it does no good unless Intuit understands why the dropoff occurred.

Intuit has valid reasons for wanting to suppress piracy. We need to motivate Intuit to find a different way. Free market competition can be an extremely powerful motivator.

[plymaniac]

Last year I used Tax Cut 2001 Deluxe and it worked great. But I'm cheap. Has anyone tried the free download Tax Act 2002 ?

[George W. Bush]

I have to congratulate you both. It's so much more effective to confront them directly than to just discard their product and get something else. It really presses the point home with them in a way they won't forget.

I suspect they already know they're in serious trouble with this. A lot of message boards and articles show people bristling over the practice. I think it's because it is their tax/financial software that makes it such a hot issue. Perhaps people wouldn't be reacting quite so strongly otherwise.

I have to wonder if they can demonstrate known piracy from last year to justify this C-Dilla thing this year. If so, then do they still feel that way after the market's reaction and the WSJ article.

I suspect they may be having some second thoughts. Just a hunch.