Texas AG Ken Paxton sues Netflix, claims streaming giant spied on children and illegally collected data
Streaming giant Netflix is facing a lawsuit after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the company illegally collected consumer data about kids and adults without knowledge or consent.
In an announcement shared Monday, Paxton accused Netflix of being "a logging company that records and monetizes billions of behavioral events—and occasionally streams movies", saying the streaming company "uses intentional engineering to track and log users' viewing habits, preferences, devices, household networks, application usage, and other sensitive behavioral data."
The 59-page lawsuit, filed in Collin County on Monday, opened by citing a 2019 statement from Netflix co-founder and former CEO Reed Hastings, saying the streaming company doesn't collect information.
"We're really focused on just making our members happy, and we're not tied up with all that controversy around advertising," Hastings' statement reads.
Paxton, however, claims that data is collected from both adult and children's user profiles, and then shared by Netflix to commercial data brokers and advertising companies to build detailed advertising profiles.
"Netflix users' data is essentially shopped across Big Ad Tech's shadowy network. The company earns billions of dollars every year from secretly selling consumer data," part of Paxton's announcement reads.
Paxton also claims Netflix designs its platform to be "addictive", citing its autoplay function.
"Netflix has built a surveillance program designed to illegally collect and profit from Texans' personal data without their consent, and my office will do everything in our power to stop it," Paxton said in a statement as part of the announcement. "Netflix is not the ad-free and kid-friendly platform it claims to be. Instead, it has misled consumers while exploiting their private data to make billions. I will continue to work to protect Texas families from deceptive practices by Big Tech companies and ensure that corporations are held accountable under Texas law."
CBS News Texas affiliate CBS Bay Area received a response from Netflix, which said in a statement "Respectfully to the great state of Texas and Attorney General Paxton, this lawsuit lacks merit and is based on inaccurate and distorted information. Netflix takes our members' privacy seriously and complies with privacy and data‑protection laws everywhere we operate. We look forward to addressing the Texas Attorney General's allegations in court and further explaining our industry-leading, kid‑friendly parental controls and transparent privacy practices."
The Texas Attorney General's Office said it is suing Netflix under the state's Deceptive Trade Practices Act.