• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, July 28, 2023

Meta Platforms is asking a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit over its alleged collection of taxpayers' information from online filing sites.

In papers filed late Thursday with U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco, Meta argues that it didn't want the information, and tried to prevent filing sites from sending the data.

“Plaintiffs incorrectly assert that Meta broke the law when third-party tax websites allegedly used Meta’s Pixel tool to send financial information that Meta both contractually prohibited them from sending and attempted to filter out,” the company writes in a motion asking Illston to dismiss the lawsuit at an early stage.

“Offering a standard tool is not enough to impose liability merely because some third parties might misuse it,” Meta adds.

Meta's papers come in response to a class-action complaint alleging that its tracking code, the Meta Pixel, was present on tax-filing sites and transmitted filers' personal information to the social platform.

The complaint came soon after The Markup reported that the Meta Pixel, was on several popular tax services' sites, including H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer. After The Markup contacted some of the companies, they reportedly revised their practices: TaxAct stopped sending financial information to Meta, while TaxSlayer removed the pixel from their filing sites.

Earlier this month, Democratic lawmakers released a separate report stating that online tax preparation services shared “millions” of users' sensitive information with Meta, Google, and other tech companies.

That report said the tax sites shared people's filing status, approximate adjusted gross income, refund amount, and names of dependents, among other information.

Meta confirmed that it used the data for ad targeting and to train artificial intelligence algorithms, according to that report, which was issued by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois), Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), along with Representative Katie Porter (D-California).

The class-action complaint against Meta includes claims that the company violated federal and state wiretap laws, as well as other state statutes.

Meta argues in its new court papers that it isn't responsible for other companies' decisions to transmit data, arguing that there's no “valid legal basis to hold Meta liable for how third-party tax filing services chose to configure their own websites, in violation of Meta’s terms and policies.”

Counsel for the taxpayers is expected to respond to Meta's argument by mid-September.