“We stand behind our marketing actions as being both appropriate and consistent with our core value - integrity without compromise,” Goodarzi said. He said millions of taxpayers also filed for free under its commercial TurboTax offerings.

Goodarzi did not repeat statements he made in an internal company video. In that format, he admitted Intuit had decided to not make the Free File program available to search engines for ranking. He also said Intuit had decided to end that practice.

The search engine action had drawn criticismfrom the investigative reporting group, ProPublica which also accused H&R Block of following the same course of action.

In addition, at issue is that Intuit promotes its Free program which is different than the Free File Alliance program, which provides services to taxpayers who meet income thresholds. Intuit’s version of the Alliance program is called the TurboTax Freedom edition. ProPublica believes the names complicate the search for those interested in the government program.