There are many reasons why I advice against becoming reliant on third-party services. The most obvious one is privacy. Many service providers harvest personal information from users that can then be used by advertisers and government agencies alike. Another reason is resiliency. A service can disappear overnight. Google is especially notorious for killing of services. If you’re reliant on a service and the provider decides to stop providing it, there’s little you can do. A third reason is that providers can change the rules:
Financial services giant Intuit this week informed 1.4 million small businesses using its QuickBooks Online Payroll and Intuit Online Payroll products that their payroll information will be shared with big-three consumer credit bureau Equifax starting later this year unless customers opt out by the end of this month.
Intiut is giving customers until the end of the month to opt out… for now. Rule changes like this aren’t uncommon with online service providers. Oftentimes, as in this case, when a provider makes a significant change to the rules, it’ll give current users the option to opt out. However, as time goes by it’s common for the option to either be made harder to choose or taken away entirely.
This behavior is the norm rather than the exception for service providers. Google and Facebook are probably two of the most notorious perpetrators, but certainly not the only ones.
If you are a small business that uses Intiut services for your payroll, I suggest developing a migration strategy now. It’s much better to have a plan while you still have the option of opting out than to develop a plan after the option to opt out is taken away.