{"id":305950,"date":"2026-05-23T13:53:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T13:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/305950\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T13:53:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T13:53:11","slug":"netflix-told-users-it-didnt-collect-their-data-texas-says-that-was-a-lie-and-now-the-state-is-taking-the-streaming-giant-to-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/305950\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix told users it didn’t collect their data. Texas says that was a lie \u2014 and now the state is taking the streaming giant to court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Netflix<\/a> has landed itself in hot water with the state of Texas.<\/p>\n

A lawsuit against the streaming giant was made by the state on Monday, saying the company has been spying on children and other consumers by collecting their data without permission, and designing the platform to be addictive, Reuters<\/a> and Fox Business<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

The state accuses Netflix of falsely telling consumers it did not collect or share user data while raking in billions of dollars a year.<\/p>\n

In the lawsuit, filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the complaint claims \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<\/p>\n

Texas added in the lawsuit, \u201cWhen you watch Netflix, Netflix watched you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The streaming giant has also been accused of quietly using \u201cdark patterns\u201d or design tactics intended to manipulate user behavior to keep them tuned in, including an autoplay feature in which a new show starts when the previous show would end.<\/p>\n

In a press release, Paxton claims that the streaming platform \u201chas built a surveillance program designed to illegally collect and profit from Texans\u2019 personal data without their consent, and my office will do everything in our power to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to the allegations, a Netflix spokesperson said the company intends to address the matter in court.<\/p>\n

\u201cRespectfully to the great state of Texas and Attorney General Paxton, this lawsuit lacks merit and is \u200bbased on inaccurate and distorted information,” the spokesperson said in a statement. \u201cNetflix takes our members\u2019 privacy \u200bseriously and complies with privacy and data protection laws everywhere we operate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019 complaint quoted Netflix co-founder and chairman Reed Hastings as saying in 2020, \u201cwe don\u2019t collect anything,\u201d as he attempted to distinguish Netflix\u2019s approach to data collection from the approaches of Amazon, Google and Facebook.<\/p>\n

Paxton will charge the streaming platform under the state\u2019s Deceptive Trade Practices Act and wants Netflix to stop the unlawful collection and disclosure of data.<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read the original article on pennlive.com<\/a>. Add pennlive.com<\/a> as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Netflix has landed itself in hot water with the state of Texas. A lawsuit against the streaming giant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[110862,110861,1967,14409,27,29,28,49085],"class_list":["post-305950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-collect","tag-data-protection","tag-ken-paxton","tag-netflix","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-the-state-of-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305950","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=305950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}