Commercial tax software companies (U.S.) share customers’ detailed private data with Meta…and Google.
And the standard canned response: “We take our customers’ privacy seriously.” (No, seriously… We TAKE it.)
P.S. I’ve used OpenTaxSolver for Linux for years, and recommend it highly for U.S. income tax and the few State tax return packages they currently provide.
It takes two to tango though. You can blame Facebook for buying but you can blame “tax-filing websites” for selling.
Is there something hidden in the Ts and Cs of the “tax-filing websites” where “you” agreed to this??
I can’t speak for the situation in the US but here you can partly blame it on the government for making it so damn complicated that you might even need software or a company in order to file your tax return.
Facebook to websites: “Embed our oh-so-useful Pixel in your website! It’s so easy, and totally free! Enhance your customers’ experience while gaining useful insights about them, which you can share with us. P.S. The default settings should be all right.”
Facebook to critics: “Those websites are using it wrong.”
No mention in any of their Ts&Cs of any collection by Pixel.
Amen!
Slightly more detail here: https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/22/23471842/facebook-hr-block-taxact-taxslayer-info-sharing
Then if I were a customer of one of those tax-filing websites, I would be screaming blue murder.
Apparently this story is hitting TV news now, so it’s apparently getting some traction.
I had never heard of this before.
Thanks!
He said that while he was deleting his Facebook account, he took a look at “Off-Facebook Activity” and learned that Meta actually had a “record of most of his in-store purchases made at Home Depot.”
(Customer provided his email address at checkout in the store.)
Everybody says “we respect the privacy of the customer” but they always leave off “now that we’ve been caught.”
This instance is particularly creepy, a brick-and-mortar store passing customer data directly to #^(%!^@ Facebook. Still, I’m not surprised.
Oh, it gets better. Or, more ways than one to do bad things: https://localmess.github.io/
Did you think “private browsing” was respected? This wasn’t a technical snafu or weakness of the whole thing (it’s limited what it will do), this was intentional circumvention. I’d extrapolate that something like this has and will be used by other actors as well.
Also being discussed here: How to Fully Incapacitate Google Tag Manager and Why You Should
True - but unless you
a) run Android, and
b) run the Facebook app, and
c) have a Facebook account and log in to it from the app (and keep it logged in?)
then I don’t think this can bite you.
And, seriously, if you are doing all of the above then I would wonder how much privacy a user is actually wanting???
It is true however that the effect of this circumvention could be that the privacy violation is literally more than the user agreed to and, who knows, maybe some adventurous government will start yet another court case over it, yet another cost-of-doing-business court case. 
Users (the “general public” kind) may not even realize or understand. Our expectations are somewhat different, I think.
Hey, one way to tax the tax dodgers - although at this point it already seems like it would be easier and cheaper to all (except lawyers) to set up somekind of system where they pay directly a certain amount yearly of the societal burden they cause… you know, like taxes
[and then get the bonus court cases on top of that]
Facebook said:
“We do not have an adequate level of control and explainability over how our systems use data, and thus we can’t confidently make controlled policy changes or external commitments such as ‘we will not use X data for Y purpose,’” the 2021 document read."
Bold are mine and to that the answer is simple, that if Facbook has lost control over what and where our data is stored, then shutter Facebook and use a medal chipper on all it’s hardware - every piece. To abate chipper friction, use something slippery and slimy like oil, or grease of top of line slimy use Zuckerberg.
Just had to add my 2 bits 50 bits (inflation).
To the topic, Yes, IMO, Facebook > Meta, does everything possible to circumvent privacy and suck out all the information it can from it’s assimilates.
I doubt we’ll ever see Facebook rollover into a privacy respecting SM platform. Even police use it as their local web site, just about all websites tell us to find them on Facebook, or like them on Facebook. Don’t think about it, just like us and once you do, you have been assimilated in to it’s collective.
Meh,. Better that a lot of FB members hanging out there hours upon hours a day than wandering the streets.
~s
Where then is the appropriate line?
While I choose to (attempt to) manage my privacy, I defend the right of someone else to be “stupid”. 
Should governments be intervening?
If “yes” then I would rather that they use their power to help me manage my privacy i.e. help those who even care. That would mean giving more teeth to legislation and more teeth to regulators to enforce the legislation … to make it possible for me to opt out of Surveillance Capitalism without just opting out of the internet. That would be a good first step.
Beyond that … a standardised privacy warning against all social media and all Google services etc. so that noone can claim not to realize or understand?
The reason that I don’t advocate for a more interventionist line is that the fundamental business model is inconsistent with greater controls. If you are not paying for the product then you are the product. That’s how it works. I accept that. TANSTAAFL. You can’t expect to get a free service and then not pay in some way, at least not forever.
Following that thought then … one option would be a government-mandated “paid option” where you do pay explicitly for the service and in return you get to opt out of Surveillance Capitalism.
In fact though the entire internet from Day 1 has really set the tone of “free services”. Rampant, out-of-control, Surveillance Capitalism is just the logical extension of that. Other service providers have attempted to monetise their services retrospectively in other more explicit ways, with varying degrees of success. It is particularly difficult to monetise your service explicitly when competing against the “free” services of Surveillance Capitalism.
Duck
I take offence at your calling all my friends stupid 
They think I’m stupid for buying products I think will help improve my privacy. So far, they are right.
My friends and past coworkers have so-called ‘smart phones’. They are, for the most part, happy with life. None seem to have been hurt by it. None have been called by their insurance agent who tells them their premium tippled because the agent read my friends Facebook page about rock climbing, sky diving and snorkeling in shark infested waters. Not yet anyway.
After 2.5 years with L5, and looking at my friends, I wonder, is being “stupid” so bad? 
~s
Script from Dr. Who Season 12 “Spyfall” Part 2. (2020)
[Auditorium]
BARTON: Thank you. Today, I’m here to say thank you to those of you all round the world who’ve made our achievements possible. To everyone who, over the years, has given us everything. We gave you pieces of plastic and circuitry and games, and you handed us - me, my company - total access to your lives. What you buy, where you go, who you text, what you text. Every thought and photo and post. Every credit card number, every birthday, every memorable place and all your mothers’ maiden names. So thank you for carrying our cameras in your pockets, and putting our microphones in your bedrooms. For signing up your kids, handing them our devices. We told you, of course your lives are private, of course your data’s safe. And you believed us. You kept clicking Agree. And now, we can do anything. I can send a text to every device on this planet.
(He presses a button his phone and phones bingle everywhere. Hakim, Najia, the screen in the hangar, everyone in the lecture hall.)
BARTON: Go ahead. Read it.
(The message is on screens on either side of him.)[Hangar]
YASMIN: Humanity is over. You have three minutes to prepare. …
Re the title of this thread: no, they can’t. I’ve just read
Wynn-Williams, Sarah. Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism. New York: Flatiron Books, 2025.
I didn’t like them before, but now I know that SherMark SandZuck are revolting, despicable, contemptible people, as this insider exposé repeatedly shows. No wonder they tried to block its release and won’t let her speak about it.
I can picture Barbara Striesand singing her “People” song with the word “careless” substituted for “luckiest”.