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Tax Filing Websites Have Been Sending Users’ Financial Information to Facebook [1]

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Date: 2022-11-22

themarkup.org/...

By Simon Fondrie-Teitler, Angie Waller, and Colin Lecher Major tax filing services such as H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer have been quietly transmitting sensitive financial information to Facebook when Americans file their taxes online, The Markup has learned. The data, sent through widely used code called the Meta Pixel, includes not only information like names and email addresses but often even more detailed information, including data on users’ income, filing status, refund amounts, and dependents’ college scholarship amounts. The information sent to Facebook can be used by the company to power its advertising algorithms and is gathered regardless of whether the person using the tax filing service has an account on Facebook or other platforms operated by its owner, Meta.

Having having now been exposed, the companies have changed some of their practices:

On Monday, after TaxAct was contacted by The Markup for comment, the company’s site no longer sent financial details like income and refund amount to Meta but continued to send the names of dependents. The site also continued to send financial information to Google Analytics. Also as of Monday, TaxSlayer and Ramsey Solutions had removed the pixel from their tax filing sites and TurboTax had stopped sending usernames through the pixel at sign in. H&R Block’s site was continuing to send information on health savings accounts and college tuition grants.

Emphases added. More from the Markup:

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/22/2137902/-Tax-Filing-Websites-Have-Been-Sending-Users-Financial-Information-to-Facebook

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