If you recall, a recent study H&R Block’s Via Pixel tracking tool TaxAct and TaxSlayer revealed that users from other popular tax filing websites, such as .
pixels, a code that companies can place on their websites. With the help of this code, sites can monitor visitors’ activities and use Facebook and Facebook for ad targeting. Instagram can identify their users. Apparently, the aforementioned tax preparation websites were passing personal information, such as income data, filing status, refund amounts, and dependents’ educational expenses, to Meta via this code. Tax filing services had already either changed Pixel settings or started re-evaluating how they used the Pixel to stop the transmission of information after Markup’s report came out.
Meta will appear in court once again! Which one is this?
Meta, when the news first came out to Engadget In a statement, it said that advertisers are prohibited from sharing personal information and that it uses an automated system that can filter sensitive content sent through Pixel. In their complaint, the plaintiffs acknowledged that Meta required businesses using Pixel to “give consent to collect, use, and share” user data before providing the company with any information. The plaintiffs, however, claim that Meta has made no effort to enforce this rule and instead relied on a “broken system” that resulted in “documented repeated violations.”
to The Markup Accordingly, the case has class action status for individuals who use the tax preparation services outlined in the publication’s report. However, the service itself is not involved as a defendant in the case.