Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Monday against Netflix, Inc., alleging the company illegally collected and monetised personal data of Texans—including children—while publicly denying such practices 1. The petition, filed in Collin County state court near Dallas, seeks a permanent injunction to halt Netflix's alleged data collection, civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA), and a jury trial 1.
Officials described the petition as one of the most significant consumer-privacy actions against a major streaming platform 1. "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 1.
The petition claims Netflix, which generates roughly $1.5 billion annually from Texas subscribers, operated what the complaint describes as "a behavioural-surveillance program of staggering scale" while assuring consumers otherwise 1. According to the filing, Netflix intentionally tracked and logged users' viewing habits, preferences, devices, household networks, application usage, and other sensitive behavioural data, treating each interaction as a data point 1.
The State alleges the company sold this information to commercial data brokers and advertising technology firms, generating billions in revenue 1. "Netflix is not the ad-free and kid-friendly platform it claims to be," Paxton said. "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" 1.
The complaint references statements by Netflix co-founder and former CEO Reed Hastings. In a 2019 shareholder letter, Hastings assured investors they could "be confident" Netflix was not "moving into selling advertising" 1. During a January 2020 earnings call, he stated: "We're not integrating everybody's data" and "We don't collect anything" 1.
The petition claims these statements were designed to shield Netflix from the regulatory scrutiny faced by competitors like Meta, Google, and Amazon 1. The lawsuit places particular emphasis on Netflix's children's accounts 1.
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