The company behind TurboTax has lost out on a bid to compel arbitration in a case brought on behalf of consumers who were eligible to file their taxes for free who claim they were fooled into paying for tax filing services. 

In a ruling exploring the limits of so-called "sign-in wrap" agreements, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of the Northern District of California on Thursday found that the company's terms of service were not "reasonably conspicuous" and that consumers, therefore, didn't agree to arbitrate disputes with TurboTax maker Intuit. The terms of use were hyperlinked in blue text under the TurboTax sign-in button, but not underlined, falling short of what the judge called "the gold standard." Breyer also found that Intuit's sign-in and account recovery pages contained multiple, confusingly similar hyperlinks purportedly binding consumers to both the "Turbo Terms of Use" and the "Turbo Tax Terms of Use," only the latter of which contained the arbitration agreement the company was seeking to enforce. 

"Because the terms were too inconspicuous to give plaintiffs constructive notice that they were agreeing to be bound by the arbitration agreement when they signed in to TurboTax, the court finds that plaintiffs did not agree to the arbitration provision," Breyer wrote.