Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Netflix alleging the streaming giant illegally collected viewing data from Texas users — including children — without their knowledge or consent, and used that data to manipulate viewing behavior toward ideologically driven content.
“Netflix has built a surveillance program designed to illegally collect and profit from Texans’ personal data,” Paxton stated. The lawsuit alleges Netflix secretly tracked and logged users’ viewing habits, preferences, devices, household networks, application usage, and other behavioral data — including from children’s profiles — and disclosed that information to commercial data brokers and advertising technology companies.
Paxton alleges Netflix used an autoplay function designed to create a “continuous stream of content intended to keep users, including children, watching for extended periods of time.” The lawsuit also alleges Netflix sold subscriptions by promising consumers it did not engage in Big Tech-style data collection — then launched an ad-supported tier in 2022 while continuing the very surveillance it had denied.
Speaking on The Alex Marlow Show on Saturday, Paxton said: “They’re taking our data… They use that data to manipulate behavior, including that of children to watch these woke shows they have on Netflix.”
The lawsuit was filed under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Paxton previously secured a $1.375 billion settlement against Google for privacy violations. Netflix now faces the same legal pressure — for building a surveillance system it promised its customers it would never become.
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