My father just told me he has used OLT, a free online tax preparing site. I had not heard of it before, and when I googled it, I saw the plethora of similar sites and services now available. I have been using desktop TurboTax for years and was not aware of these types of sites.
I took a look at OLT privacy agreement, which includes:
Opt-out of tracking for targeted advertising purposes. You can submit requests to opt-out of tracking for targeted advertising purposes by visiting the "Manage Cookies" or "Privacy Settings" link in the footer of our website. We do not otherwise "sell" your Personal Data to third parties for monetary consideration
So in order for the advertising to be targeted, they've got to know the target, and knowing the target means collecting and sharing specifics.
Is there any reason to think the old adage "if it's free, then you are the product" does not apply when it comes to all these free sites? Otherwise, how could they be in business? The IRS does not pay them. The free filers do not pay them. Who pays them? Advertising companies that want use the data the tax sites collect. Right?
I do e-file with TurboTax which mean I send all my info to Intuit, but as far as I can tell (knock on wood), they do not retain that info on their servers.
The actionable part of this, is should I tell my dad to quit using these sites? I could buy him the desktop Turbotax if he didn't want to shell out the money himself.
I took a look at OLT privacy agreement, which includes:
Opt-out of tracking for targeted advertising purposes. You can submit requests to opt-out of tracking for targeted advertising purposes by visiting the "Manage Cookies" or "Privacy Settings" link in the footer of our website. We do not otherwise "sell" your Personal Data to third parties for monetary consideration
So in order for the advertising to be targeted, they've got to know the target, and knowing the target means collecting and sharing specifics.
Is there any reason to think the old adage "if it's free, then you are the product" does not apply when it comes to all these free sites? Otherwise, how could they be in business? The IRS does not pay them. The free filers do not pay them. Who pays them? Advertising companies that want use the data the tax sites collect. Right?
I do e-file with TurboTax which mean I send all my info to Intuit, but as far as I can tell (knock on wood), they do not retain that info on their servers.
The actionable part of this, is should I tell my dad to quit using these sites? I could buy him the desktop Turbotax if he didn't want to shell out the money himself.
Statistics: Posted by HappyPappy — Sun Mar 03, 2024 8:05 am — Replies 0 — Views 33