Meta was sued for allegedly violating user privacy by collecting data from popular third-party users. tax software.
filing regarding the recent allegations that online tax software tools such as H&R Block, TaxAct and TaxSlayer used the company’s “Meta Pixel”, a piece of javascript code, to send information such as name, email address, income information, data student loan and refund amount for Meta.
This will then be used by the tech giant to create targeted, customized ads based on data on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
The lawsuit was filed on December 1 regarding users of H&R Block.
The submit (opens in a new tab) claims that although users “explicitly refuse” to share their data with Meta, the company still collects it.
While the plaintiff’s filing acknowledged that Meta requires businesses to have “legitimate rights to collect, use, and share” user data, it goes on to claim that it does not respect this, instead relying on “a broken honor system that has resulted in repeated violations of Meta’s contractual commitments as well as federal and state law”.
Despite the tech giant’s alleged misconduct, current users of the aforementioned tax software should have nothing to worry about.
Based on tick (opens in a new tab), All of the aforementioned tax platforms have either removed the Pixel completely or changed its settings to not collect any more financial information from users.
It’s important to note that the tax services themselves are not listed as defendants on file, placing all of the alleged misconduct on the part of Meta.
Meta is certainly no stranger to legal disputes.
The company was beaten with a data protection fine of 265 million euros from the Irish Data Protection Commission on claims that the company failed to protect the personal data of half a billion users, bringing the total EU fines to date to more than 1 billion euros.
- Want to make sure your data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands? Check out our guide to best security tool.
