{"id":288827,"date":"2026-05-12T01:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T01:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/288827\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T01:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T01:25:12","slug":"texas-accuses-netflix-of-spying-on-children-in-new-lawsuit-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/288827\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas accuses Netflix of spying on children in new lawsuit | Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas<\/a> sued Netflix<\/a> on Monday, accusing the streaming company of spying on children and designing its platform to be addictive.<\/p>\n

Ken Paxton<\/a>, 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 and sold viewers\u2019 habits and preferences to commercial data brokers and advertising technology companies, making billions of dollars a year.<\/p>\n

The Los Gatos, California-based company was also accused of quietly using \u201cdark patterns\u201d to keep users watching, including an autoplay feature that starts a new show when a different show ends. Netflix<\/a> did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019s complaint follows a spate<\/a> of lawsuits<\/a> targeting tech companies over features that the plaintiffs have said are addictive and dangerous to children. In March, a Los Angeles jury found<\/a> Meta and YouTube 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cFor years, Netflix\u2019s leadership told the world it had \u2018zero interest\u2019 in advertising \u2026 and styled itself as the anti-Big Ad Tech refuge,\u201d according to the complaint. \u201cBut once Netflix had stockpiled user data under those promises, it flipped the script and built an ads business that mirrors everything it once attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019s complaint quoted Reed Hastings<\/a>, the former Netflix chief executive, as saying in 2020 \u201cwe don\u2019t collect anything,\u201d as he sought to distinguish Netflix from Amazon, Facebook and Google with regard to data collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cNetflix\u2019s endgame is simple and 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,\u201d according to Texas\u2019s complaint filed in a state court in Collin county, near Dallas. \u201cWhen you watch Netflix, Netflix watches you,\u201d the complaint added. Paxton said Netflix\u2019s alleged surveillance violates the Texas<\/a> Deceptive Trade Practices Act.<\/p>\n

He wants the company to purge data it collected illegally, not use the data for targeted advertising without users\u2019 consent, and pay civil fines of up to $10,000 per violation.<\/p>\n

Paxton, a Republican, is running<\/a> for<\/a> the US Senate, challenging incumbent Republican senator John Cornyn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas sued Netflix on Monday, accusing the streaming company of spying on children and designing its platform to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-288827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}