Read the lawsuit here.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit on Monday against Netflix, Inc., alleging that the company illegally collected and monetized the personal data of Texans, including children, while publicly stating it did not collect or share such information.
Texas is seeking a permanent injunction to stop Netflix’s alleged data collection practices, civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA), and a jury trial. Officials described the petition, filed in Collin County state court near Dallas, as one of the most significant consumer-privacy actions against a major streaming platform.
“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,” Attorney General Paxton said. “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.”
What the Lawsuit Alleges: The petition claims that Netflix, which generates about $1.5 billion annually from Texas subscribers, operated what the complaint describes as “a behavioral-surveillance program of staggering scale” while assuring consumers otherwise.
The petition alleges that Netflix intentionally tracked and logged users’ viewing habits, preferences, devices, household networks, application usage, and other sensitive behavioral data, treating each interaction as a data point. According to the State, the company sold this information to commercial data brokers and advertising technology firms, generating billions in revenue.
The complaint references statements made by Netflix co-founder and former CEO Reed Hastings. In a 2019 shareholder letter, Hastings assured investors they could “be confident” that Netflix was not “moving into selling advertising.” During a January 2020 earnings call, he added: “We’re not integrating everybody’s data” and “We don’t collect anything.” The petition claims these statements were intended to shield Netflix from the regulatory scrutiny faced by competitors such as Meta, Google, and Amazon.
Children’s Accounts at the Centre of the Complaint: The lawsuit places significant emphasis on Netflix’s treatment of younger users. The State alleges that while Netflix presents itself as a “kid-friendly” platform, it collects data from children’s profiles and designs features to maximize screen time.
The petition specifically challenges Netflix’s autoplay feature, which automatically streams the next episode. It argues that the feature was intentionally designed to keep children and families engaged and generate additional behavioral data. The State also notes that autoplay was enabled by default on children’s profiles, which Netflix had marketed as protected spaces.
“Netflix’s years-long bait-and-switch has led the company right to where it promised never to be: addicting children and families to its platform, mining those users for data, and then converting that data into lucrative intelligence for global advertising juggernauts,” the petition states.
Netflix Denies Wrongdoing: Following the announcement of the lawsuit, a Netflix spokesperson rejected the allegations, saying the suit “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,” the spokesperson said.
Background — A Pattern of Big-Tech Enforcement: Monday’s action against Netflix continues Paxton’s broader technology-sector enforcement efforts. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has also filed lawsuits against data brokers, social media platforms, and streaming services on similar grounds, making Texas one of the leading state-level enforcers of consumer privacy rights.
Attorney General Paxton filed the lawsuit while seeking the Republican nomination for the United States Senate and challenging the incumbent in the 2026 primary. Critics question the timing, but Paxton’s office said the lawsuit is based on documented consumer-protection violations identified by the OAG’s investigation.
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