Right on, but you forgot to mention the other part of their business model with is to sell out their customer's financial information to the highest-paying bidder.
In addition to TurboTax, Intuit owns Mint.com, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and other services. All of these services are covered under Intuit's global privacy policy, which states that Intuit uses personal information in multiple privacy-violating ways:
> For joint features, sales, promotions and events. We may share your information with third-parties companies who are jointly providing features, sales initiatives, promotions or events with us.
> With financial services providers. We may share personal Information with collection agencies, credit bureaus and loan service providers, and payment card association members. We may also share your personal information with other companies, lawyers, credit bureaus, agents, government agencies, and card associations in connection with issues related to fraud, credit, defaults, or debt collection.
> We may share your information with our affiliates and subsidiaries for everyday business purposes as described in this Statement, including for marketing purposes.
Considering that Mint.com and Credit Karma are free of charge, it's obvious that Intuit is using personal information harvested from these services to generate revenue in the ways described. TurboTax and QuickBooks are mainly paid products, but have the same privacy policy.
On Intuit's privacy statement page [0] there is a "How We Share Your Information" section which contains the following paragraphs (amongst others):
> When you connect with an Intuit Platform partner. You may be provided with offers, products, and services from third-party companies who integrate with our Intuit Platform (“Platform Partner”). If you choose to interact with a Platform Partner, apply for their services or offerings or otherwise link or sync your account to a Platform Partner’s product or service, you consent and direct Intuit to share your information, including personal information, to the Platform Partner providing the service or offering.
> For joint features, sales, promotions and events. We may share your information with third-parties companies who are jointly providing features, sales initiatives, promotions or events with us.
> With financial services providers. We may share personal Information with collection agencies, credit bureaus and loan service providers, and payment card association members. We may also share your personal information with other companies, lawyers, credit bureaus, agents, government agencies, and card associations in connection with issues related to fraud, credit, defaults, or debt collection.
> With our affiliates and subsidiaries and your right to limit information sharing. We may share your information with our affiliates and subsidiaries for everyday business purposes as described in this Statement, including for marketing purposes.
I stopped using turbo tax a long time ago because of their privacy policy. I use olt.com now.