Texas accuses Netflix of spying on children in new lawsuit

Texas sued Netflix on Monday, accusing the streaming company of spying on children and designing its platform to be addictive.

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said Netflix has for years falsely represented to consumers that it did not collect or share user data, when it actually tracked. sold viewers’ habits and preferences to commercial data brokers and advertising technology companies, making billions of dollars a year.

The Los Gatos. California-based company was also accused of quietly using “dark patterns” to keep users watching, including an autoplay feature that starts a new show when a different show ends. Netflix did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

liable for designing addictive products that had harmed young people. opening the floodgates for thousands of similar lawsuits that will be decided later this year. Texas cites the California verdict as precedent.

Paxton said Netflix marketed itself as a safe haven from data-hungry social networks when. in fact, it was engaged in similar information harvesting.

“For years, Netflix’s leadership told the world it had ‘zero interest’ in advertising …. styled itself as the anti-Big Ad Tech refuge,” according to the complaint. “But once Netflix had stockpiled user data under those promises, it flipped the script. built an ads business that mirrors everything it once attacked.”

Texas’s complaint quoted Reed Hastings, the former Netflix chief executive, as saying in 2020 “we don’t collect anything,” as he sought to distinguish Netflix from Amazon, Facebook. Google with regard to data collection.

“Netflix’s endgame is simple. lucrative: get children and families glued to the screen, harvest their data while they are stuck there, and then monetize the data for a handsome profit,” according to Texas’s complaint filed in a state court in Collin county, near Dallas. “When you watch Netflix, Netflix watches you,” the complaint added. Paxton said Netflix’s alleged surveillance violates the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

He wants the company to purge data it collected illegally, not use the data for targeted advertising without users’ consent,. pay civil fines of up to $10,000 per violation.

Paxton, a Republican, is running for the US Senate, challenging incumbent Republican senator John Cornyn.