Legal Bombs Fall on TurboTax Maker Intuit for ‘Hiding’ Free Service From Search Engines
14th May 2019
The class-action lawsuit [PDF] from TurboTax users from across the United States was lodged in San Francisco, and joins one filed [PDF] last week by the Los Angeles City Attorney on behalf of the people of California, also against Intuit.
Both lawsuits claim that Intuit’s use of HTML metatags to prevent search engines from indexing the website where the free software is available led to people being “intentionally misled and deprived of the opportunity to make an informed decision about their tax-filing service.” In other words, people went straight to the paid-for system not knowing there was a free alternative.
Under an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), tax software companies offer free-filing versions of their products for those earning under a certain amount (typically $66,000 a year). In return, the IRS agrees not to produce its own tax filing software.