Mastodawn

Nov 22, 2022

Reminder.
Facebook is still a big pile of steaming 💩!

“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.
This article was copublished with The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates how powerful institutions are using technology to change our society. Sign up for its newsletters here.
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.”
Full article
👉 https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/22/23471842/facebook-hr-block-taxact-taxslayer-info-sharing
#facebook #privacy #cybersecurity #infosec #socialmedia #ethics #twitter #tech #technology #digital #society

Facebook has been receiving users’ financial info from tax preparers

The Markup found that tax preparation services including TaxAct, TaxSlayer, and H&R Block have sent users’ personal financial information to Facebook through the Meta Pixel.

The Verge

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Luna M

@Marcociappelli So if I'm reading this correctly, it's literally illegal to not allow these companies to collect your full legal name, home address, e-mail, income, refunds, dependents and any charitable contributions you may have made and to whom, any business expenses you claimed or qualifying medical costs that you incurred. Especially if you don't have the knowledge to file it yourself or money to pay someone to do it in person (or an offline tax application, not that there are many of those nowadays). If you need free tax services, you have to use one of these dumpster fires because the IRS says so. Maybe I'm misunderstanding...

Even if not, I'm sure there are ways around it but damn, that's bleak af.

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Marco Ciappelli🎙️✨

Nov 23, 2022

@luna_m It is a Fucked Up system ... if you read the article I shared and you scroll towards the bottom you will find more info about that... MONEY ,,, is all about the money but when it comes to privacy we need strong regulation such as GDPR in Europe.

quoting
"No way out for taxpayers

American taxpayers have few options but to turn to private companies to file their returns.

Unlike other countries, the United States has a heavily privatized system for filing taxes, one that often requires the use of third-party tax preparers. In other countries, the government handles the calculations and taxpayers simply approve the numbers. But after a successful lobbying push from private companies, tax preparers in the US effectively act as middlemen between taxpayers and the government.

Tax preparation is now big business: market researchers have estimated that it’s a more than $11 billion industry in the United States."