{"id":789305,"date":"2026-05-11T18:30:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T18:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/789305\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T18:30:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T18:30:31","slug":"texas-sues-netflix-for-advertising-bait-and-switch-and-spying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/789305\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas sues Netflix for advertising \u2018bait and switch\u2019 and spying"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/28112957-paxton-v-netflix\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">filed a lawsuit against Netflix<\/a>, accusing the company of turning its back on its promise to remain ad-free and safe for kids. The lawsuit, filed on Monday, claims Netflix has \u201copened Texans\u2019 data for inspection by the same Big Ad Tech community it once criticized for exploiting users in this same way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">In the lawsuit, Paxton claims Netflix drove up subscriptions by promoting its platform as an \u201cescape from Big Tech surveillance.\u201d But that changed when Netflix introduced an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/10\/13\/23402725\/netflix-basic-with-ads\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ad-supported streaming plan in 2022<\/a>, something <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adexchanger.com\/online-advertising\/reed-hastings-explains-why-netflix-wont-ever-sell-ads\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">co-founder Reed Hastings promised not to do<\/a>. Its move into digital advertising allowed Netflix to use \u201cthe mountains of data it quietly extracted from the children and families,\u201d the lawsuit alleges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">Paxton accuses Netflix of building a \u201cbehavior-surveillance program\u201d that involves collecting information about \u201cuser events,\u201d like their location, the device they\u2019re using, search terms, how they rate content, and more. The streaming service is accused of opening this information to data brokers like Experian and Acxiom:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"duet--article--blockquote ewrhy30 _1xwtict9\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup ewrhy38 _1xwtict1\">Netflix\u2019s years-long bait-and-switch has led the company right to where it promised never to be: addicting children and families to its platform, mining those users for data, and then converting that data into lucrative intelligence for global advertising juggernauts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">In addition to accusing Netflix of an advertising \u201cbait-and-switch,\u201d Paxton claims Netflix misled subscribers about child safety, citing its autoplay feature that\u2019s enabled by default across adults\u2019 and kids\u2019 profiles. \u201cNetflix is not the ad-free and kid-friendly platform it claims to be. Instead, it has misled consumers while exploiting their private data to make billions,\u201d Paxton says in the press release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">Paxton accuses Netflix of violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and asks the court to block the streamer\u2019s \u201cunlawful collection and disclosure\u201d of user data, as well as to disable autoplay by default on kids\u2019 profiles. Netflix didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Netflix, accusing the company of turning its back&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":734225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,171,4659,50,6584,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-789305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-netflix","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-streaming","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116557370571499175","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}