Tax Program Develops An Insulting Approach (Walt Mossberg) — having used TurboTax for many years, I bought my copy this weekend only to learn that Intuit has added product activation and spyware to the installation process. They’ve already got a lucrative product with a guaranteed need to upgrade every year, so why go to the trouble of activation? Is sharing copies of TurboTax such a big problem? I’m already committed this year, but TaxCut is looking better for 2003.
Apparently this is a real support issue; their support FAQ page includes almost 40 topics. Thankfully they have finally published an uninstaller for the SafeCast spyware which normally wouldn’t be removed by removing TurboTax.