Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Netflix on Monday, accusing the company of reneging on its promise to remain ad-free and child-safe. The lawsuit alleges that Netflix "opened inspection access to Texans' data, exposing it to the large ad tech community that Netflix has criticized for exploiting users in the same manner."
In the lawsuit, Paxton claims that Netflix drove subscription growth by promoting its platform as an "escape from the surveillance of big tech companies." But at the same time, Paxton accused the streaming service of "setting up a behavioral monitoring program" in the background, equipped with addictive features such as autoplay, which automatically plays the next episode after one ends.
"Netflix's ultimate goal is simple and lucrative: keep children and families glued to screens, collect data while they're stuck there, and then monetize the data for substantial profits," Paxton said in the lawsuit. The lawsuit cites Netflix's annual revenue figures, which have jumped from $15 billion in 2018 to a projected $50 billion in 2026.
"Netflix has established a surveillance program designed to illegally collect and profit from Texans' personal data without their consent, and my office will do everything in its power to stop this," Paxton said in the release. He also said: "Netflix is not the ad-free and child-friendly platform it claims to be. Instead, it misleads consumers while exploiting their private data to make billions of dollars."
Paxton accused Netflix of violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and asked the court to stop the streaming service from "unlawfully collecting and disclosing" user data and disabling autoplay by default in children's profiles.