Unfinished business

Some gripes just won’t come to a neat conclusion. That’s particularly clear this week as I write my last The Gripe Line for InfoWorld and try to tie up a few loose ends that won’t stay closed.

One very loose thread has been our discussion of TurboTax and the product-activation scheme that Intuit chose to implement in the 2002 tax year version. I’m pleased to report that Intuit has been listening to its customers and has committed to making some changes.

Although it is not promising to get rid of product activation altogether — which is what many would like to see — Intuit will at least remove some of the more onerous aspects of the copy protection technology in the upcoming version. “What we’ve already committed to doing next year is that we will not have any product activation that is memory resident or that writes to the first section of the hard drive,” says Scott Gulbransen, Intuit’s corporate communications manager.

Intuit is also examining ways it can better communicate the product-activation requirement to customers before they buy TurboTax. Gulbransen adds that product activation for the 2002 version of TurboTax will be free after Oct. 16 of this year, so customers who need to re-install their copy on a new computer or hard drive to file an amended return can do so without charge.

Does Intuit finally get it? Well, I have my doubts, especially when I see some of the things Intuit states regarding its policies. On the company’s Web site, one example of TurboTax product activation’s restrictions particularly caught my eye: “You activate TurboTax on your home computer and attempt to electronically file your tax return, but problems with your Internet connection prevent you from filing successfully,” the Intuit Web page reads. “The next day, you install TurboTax at work. In order to electronically file your tax return from your work computer, you must purchase a new product license by activating TurboTax on your work computer.”

I’m amazed that any company would tout this as a fair practice. You have a problem using TurboTax on one computer — a problem that for all you know might be TurboTax’s fault — and you have to buy another license to re-install it? By the time this column appears, I expect a number of Intuit customers will have lived out this scenario on or about April 15. So, no, I don’t think we’ve heard the last Intuit gripe, unfortunately.

Another dangling thread that’s clinging to some better news, at least, is the dreaded Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA). When we last looked at this issue, you’ll recall that UCITA’s sponsoring organization had decided to carry on with plans to push for the law’s enactment in 10 more states. And they did so, despite the fact they failed miserably in an attempt to have UCITA approved by the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates at its February meeting in Seattle.

Fortunately, to date UCITA has been promptly beaten down in every state where it’s reared its ugly head. When introduced in states such as Oklahoma and Nevada, it was quickly tabled in committee or withdrawn. Because legislative sessions in many states will end soon, there’s a good chance UCITA will again fail to gain ground this year. And, although UCITA is still on the books in Virginia and Maryland, it’s possible Massachusetts and Vermont will join Iowa, West Virginia, and North Carolina as states that enact anti-UCITA “bomb shelter” laws. (For more information about UCITA, visit the Americans for Fair Electronic Commerce Transactions coalition’s Web site at www.ucita.com.)

News on the UCITA front seems good, but it’s not time to get complacent. Remember that we’ve tried to bury it more than once before, only to see it rise from the dead. As I’ve mentioned, the same organization that created UCITA has endorsed some obtuse changes to existing state laws that could have effects similar to UCITA.

And those wishing to stack the legal deck against digital product consumers are very good at pushing their agenda without attracting attention. Case in point: The horrifying revelation that “Super-DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)” legislation proposed by the motion picture industry has already passed in several states — including Virginia and Maryland, interestingly enough — without causing a stir. Presented as an attempt to strengthen laws prohibiting theft of television and telephone services, the laws actually appear to have all manner of consequences, including making it a crime to use basic security technologies such as encryption, firewalls, or routers that employ NAT. Isn’t it remarkable what our politicians will do when no one’s looking?

Because the gripes I’ve been covering here show no sign of stopping, I’m not going to stop addressing them, either. It’s my intention to keep publishing this column or one very much like it. To do so, I’m going to borrow a little from the open-source philosophy and publish an e-mail newsletter that is free to all who want to read it. And, if possible, I’d also like to keep it ad-free because gripes and ads don’t really mix.

How is this going to work exactly? I’m not sure, but it will be fun to find out. If you’re interested in coming along for the ride, write to me at newcolumn@gripe2ed.com and find out how you can get a free subscription. Or, assuming I can keep it from crashing, come visit my new Web site at www.gripe2ed.com to see how it all works out.

I want to thankInfoWorld for letting me do this for 10 years. Even more so, I thank all my readers for a decade of submitting gripes for me to take up. It’s been a blast. Now let’s see if we can go for another 10.