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They didn't share financial information, they used meta and google analytics on their sites, which can leak financial information by showing what page the user was on (e.g. pages specific to certain deductions or benefits.) Most people here in the comments clearly didn't read the article.

It's not like meta was buying up people's tax returns. Just negligence on the part of these tax sites.

Its on tax companies to do the due diligence on the users part to make sure they do not leak any taxpayer information. Its private information!

And meta and google analytics means there is data exchange, why do they want to do any "analytics" on people's personal data? Remove any and all analytics on tax websites.

Why are you straight up attacking the people by saying "Most people here in the comments clearly didn't read the article". They clearly did, understand and have full right to ask questions.

It says "tracking pixels revealed ... full name, address, and date of birth". If these pixels are that powerful, they can probably reveal income figures too.
Negligent sharing is still sharing. There is a lot of negligence in software development and we should be better as an industry. It may be standard practice to hastily integrate software without considering legal compliance, but it shouldn't be.
The AP article says:

That data came to Meta through its Pixel code, which the tax firms installed on their websites to gather information on how to improve their own marketing campaigns. In exchange, Meta was able to access the data to write targeted algorithms for its own users.

https://apnews.com/article/irs-taxpayer-tax-preparation-meta...

Looks like very much more than "just negligence". Looks like deliberate private data usage without the consent of the people involved.

> It's not like meta was buying up people's tax returns. Just negligence on the part of these tax sites.

Meta and the rest are at fault for using the data they gather from these analytics for their own purposes.

This is not a new problem, and is why I block analytics scripts and data connections to Meta/Google/etc.

Yet it's impossible for me see my own prior tax returns from a product I already paid for. I can't contact support for help without paying additional money to turbotax.

I realize this article doesn't match turbotax specifically but the entire industry is rotten to the core and shouldn't exist in the first place.

> Yet it's impossible for me see my own prior tax returns from a product I already paid for.

I get what you're saying, but is there a reason you don't download the PDF and store it in your own records?

This is a ridiculous breach of privacy and nothing will come of it. They claim to have removed the pixel after it came out.
“Don’t be evil” + “Move fast and break things” culture at its finest…

What the heck did these companies become!?

"Sorry we got caught."
And here taxable income and other information is public.
Related:

Tax-filing websites have been sending users financial info to Meta - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33753058 - Nov 2022 (20 comments)

Tax filing websites have been sending users’ financial information to Facebook - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33705532 - Nov 2022 (74 comments)

I feel like Americans are blinded by these companies. They’re just scum but we keep putting up with it. Why ?
Because these companies have a ton of power, and no individual can stand against that. We have to act collectively, and getting there is slow and difficult process.
I would be curious to know what data they're sharing exactly.

Are they actually sharing any financial information, or are they just passing a counter back to Meta saying that person X filled out a form/visited a page.

Not to say any tracking is 'good' but this might not be quite so obviously bad.

I've always assumed they share everything. That's why I do my taxes on paper and mail them in.
There should be only one tax site, it should be operated by the IRS, and, as US citizens, we should not be required to disclose our financial information to any private company in order to efficiently file our taxes.
Use your brain on this stuff. Think about how many billions of requests are being sent from pixels every day. Facebook is not looking through hundreds of millions of unique URLs and form data to find some obscure user data that their Ad systems aren't trained for.

And just look at the docs if you want to find out what pixel exactly does: it doesn't collect form data unless the developer explicitly specifies it.

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/meta-pixel/

Meta: Of course we don't look at at billions of unique URLS for obscure data to sell better ads.

clicking off switch in AI enabled application at Meta that does exactly that

I feel like anyone with half a brain would realize that it’s very easy and fruitful for Meta to data mine the billions of requests they receive.
Why is Google not included in the title ?
I don't like the word "share" in this context: these financial companies didn't simply give away info, they got something in return and I would like more info about what they got.
The financial companies got higher performing ads delivered to the right people, as well as the ability to measure the actions taken from the ads. In exchange, they gave away your data for free.

Every company running ads on the internet is making this value exchange, but these financial companies screwed up by pouring protected data into Google's and Meta's dumb pipes.

Data miners pay for any and all profiling data that they can add to their panopticon. All the better to send you targeted ads.
They are using the ads retargeting pixel to retarget ads.

You are either deliberately making it sound more nefarious than it is or you didn’t read the article.

Pixel, Google tag manager and Bluekai (?, that one from Oracle) are in a lot of sites and mobile apps.

I’m happy to see this getting visibility around a privacy use case that’ll reach normal folks and politicians more clearly.

I’m also happy to see the “this is bad” comments far outnumbering the “well why is this Metoogle’s fault” comments that many (properly RSU’d incentivized) engineers always seem to fall back on to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the social impacts of the products they build and personally profit from.

This is the sort of thing why you really want to block 3rd party JS. There are plenty of JS blockers out there, get one and very selectively enable the stuff that you need.
I keep reading these articles. They say that tax sites "shared" or "gave" user data via active pixels, but is that really true?

Don't these companies receive money to host the pixels?

Didn't these companies actually sell user data?

"Giving" and "sharing" are not the same as "selling", yet not one article I've read indicated whether the tax prep compaies received payment for the user data.

Does anyone know?

freetaxusa.com doesn't seem to be doing this based on their privacy policy here:

https://www.freetaxusa.com/privacy

But they are not one of the majors.

Wait, why would Meta & Google even want your tax data??

Peeking at your credit cards purchase historic I can understand, as it tells them your shopping habits and helps them target you better. But tax data?? Why??

They now know what those people can afford, what schemes they might be vulnerable enough to buy into, etc.

But also think about combining it with all the other data they have? They can sell that to anyone even the government. So you know how govt agencies can't just go peek at your taxes without a good reason? Google and meta can sell this data to contractors to sleuth on people or do whatever they do because it's technically all private industry.

Any peice of data like this is super lucrative.

Ad targeting by income. It wouldn't make sense to advertise luxury vehicles to someone making $30k/year, for example.
They'd do anything for a sniff of your 3rd grade report card. Of course they want your tax info
There’s no allegation that they actually wanted it or attempted to extract tax data. They have it now, but it seems more like gross negligence rather than some nefarious plot.
They don't. There is no semantic value to this data for them. To Google and Meta, it's an arbitrary data point. To tax companies, it is data that can utilized to either target the delivery or measure the performance of their own ads.

That said, there doesn't need to be semantic value for this to feed into an ML model that ends up associating tax data attributes with other attributes.

Income level probably important
> why would Meta & Google even want your tax data??

The more they know the better of a profile they can build about you which is something they can sell. It's surveillance capitalism, plain and simple.

This is one more reason why we need to move to a single-tax system. No tax on labor, because we want more labor and you should keep what you make. No tax on capital, because we want more investment so that labor is more effective.

Tax land. Land is not capital nor is it labor. Land ownership only allows rent-seeking behavoir. Land ownership is an artificial right granted by the government.

Google "single tax movement" to learn more. Or try this:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

so if i have this right, you're saying to only tax land?

i'm only ok with this if we restrict voting rights to land owners

This should be the reason why these sites should no longer exist. The IRS should have this as a built-in service. Or better yet, return-free filing like most other large economy countries.
It would be easier if the tax code was simplified, oh wait the tax-prep companies are also lobbying against that. Maybe we should dismantle them, take their money away and use that to pay lawyers and tax specialists to simplify the tax code and create a nice and easy filing interface.
I keep reading these articles. They say that tax sites "shared" or "gave" user data via active pixels, but is that really true?

Don't these companies receive money to host the pixels?

Didn't these companies actually sell user data?

"Giving" and "sharing" are not the same as "selling", yet not one article I've read indicated whether the tax prep compaies received payment for the user data.

Does anyone know?

> return-free filing like most other large economy countries.

Taxes in the US are not objective. The IRS doesn't have enough information about you to determine how much you need to pay.

off-topic (or not): the newly launched Threads app has over 100 million users already
The amount of personal data Threads is vacuuming up compared to it's rivals is very Facebook like.

> How Threads’ Privacy Policy Compares to Twitter’s (and Its Rivals’)

https://www.wired.com/story/meta-twitter-threads-bluesky-spi...

I wonder how that compares to other features that have been added to Instagram over the years, like Stories or Reels? I suspect it is on the low side. It is only 4% of the user base.