Texas accuses Netflix of spying on users, including children

Netflix rejected the claims and said it would challenge the lawsuit in court, telling Reuters that the complaint contained inaccurate and distorted information. A Netflix spokesperson said the company takes member privacy seriously and complies with privacy and data protection laws.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a civil complaint in state court alleging Netflix collects data about Texans without consent and uses addictive design features to keep users on the platform. The filing describes billions of data points from user interactions and extensive logging, and states that in 2022 Netflix began sharing data from children and families with commercial data brokers to boost revenue. The lawsuit invokes the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and seeks orders to delete data deceptively collected from Texans, stop processing data for targeted advertising, and disable autoplay by default on children's profiles. Netflix has rejected the claims and said it will challenge the lawsuit in court.

According to the filing, in 2022 Netflix began leveraging data collected from children and families and sharing it with commercial data brokers to raise billions of dollars in revenue.

The filing also cites Hastings' statements in 2020 that Netflix did not collect or monetize user data to sell ads.

The filing cites a 2019 remark by Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings alleging that Netflix did not and would not collect or monetize user data to sell ads.