Texas AG Sues Netflix Over Data Collection

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Netflix on Monday in state district court in Collin County, accusing the streaming service of collecting personal data from users, including children, without their consent and designing its platform to keep viewers engaged for extended periods.

The complaint, brought under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, alleges that Netflix misled consumers by portraying itself as an ad-free alternative free from data tracking. Instead, the suit claims, the company operates a system that logs vast amounts of user behavior data, including viewing habits and preferences on children's accounts. Netflix processes more than 10 million events per second and collects roughly five petabytes of data daily to support over 40,000 internal services, according to the filing. It further alleges that Netflix shares this data with commercial brokers such as Experian and Acxiom, as well as advertising platforms including Google Display Video 360 and The Trade Desk.

"Netflix has built a surveillance program designed to illegally collect and profit from Texans' personal data without their consent," Paxton said in a statement. "Netflix is not the...