(Credit: Mijansk786/Shutterstock)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Netflix for allegedly breaking its initial promise to remain ad-free and safe for kids.
In the lawsuit, Paxton claims that Netflix’s subscriber base was long built on the idea that paying for the service would eliminate the need to collect user data and serve targeted ads. The company introduced an ad-supported tier in 2022 and says it uses basic demographic data and general location information based on your IP address "to help tailor the advertising."
However, Paxton claims Netflix "omitted information about the scope of first-party behavioral logging that underpins ad measurement and failed to disclose details on who receives or can model against the data Netflix harvests." A 2025 privacy policy update, meanwhile, implies "that Netflix collects and leverages data from non-ad-tier subscribers for advertising, and has likely done so since 2022," according to Paxton.
“Netflix promised Texans entertainment and delivered surveillance,” the complaint says.
It cites a blog post from Netflix to note that the streamer’s user data is shared with data brokers like Experian and Acxiom. The streaming platform also shares data with ad-tech platforms like Google’s Display & Video 360 and The Trade Desk. “Netflix users’ data is essentially shopped across Big Ad Tech’s shadowy network. The company earns billions of dollars every year from secretly selling consumer data,” Paxton said in a statement.
On Kids profiles, which don't show ads, Paxton says Netflix's privacy statement fails to clearly inform parents that it still tracks their kids’ playback patterns (play, pause, rewind, etc.) to train algorithms, and that its autoplay feature was designed to keep kids glued to the screen.
“Netflix is not the ad-free and kid-friendly platform it claims to be,” Paxton says. He's suing under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA) to force the company to disclose its user data practices and to require autoplay to be disabled on Kids profiles.
In a statement to Variety, Netflix says the Texas lawsuit "lacks merit and is based on inaccurate and distorted information.
"Netflix takes our members’ privacy seriously and complies with privacy and data‑protection laws everywhere we operate. We look forward to addressing the Texas Attorney General’s allegations in court and further explaining our industry-leading, kid‑friendly parental controls and transparent privacy practices.”
Paxton, meanwhile, is currently running for US Senate, locked in a heated battle against incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn. A runoff election is scheduled for May 26.