EST. MMXXVI · A PUBLIC RECORD
2 CONFESSIONS · 42 CASESConfess
CR-02307.07.MMXXVI

There was a genuinely free version of our product, promised in a public agreement. I helped make sure you'd never find it: de-indexed the page, named a paid tier 'Free,' and aimed the upgrade prompts at the moment you were most anxious to finish. We charged people for what we had promised to give away.

Case of RecordPublic record
Case of Record

Drawn from the public record, written in the ledger's voice. No individual confessed this entry. The mechanism is documented; the taxonomy is the point.

Source New York Attorney General — 50-state $141m settlement with Intuit over TurboTax "free" filing (2022)

Attribution
No individual confessed this entry
Tags
Deceptive designBait & switchDark patterns

This entry is part of the ledger’s canon, not Volume I. It establishes a named mechanism so that a confession has something to be measured against — read why the canon exists. Real confessions live in Volume I, and the voluntary contributions given alongside them fund scholarships at the School of Critical Design.

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