• by Wendy Davis , 2 hours ago

Florida is suing Netflix for allegedly violating consumer protection laws by collecting data about viewers in order to fuel digital advertising, after stating for years that it would not gather data about subscribers or serve advertising to them.

"Netflix profited while deceiving Floridians and must be held accountable," state Attorney General James Uthmeier said Wednesday in a post on X.

The complaint, which is nearly identical to one filed in May by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, includes allegations that Netflix designed its streaming service to addict young users, and then compiled detailed information about them without permission from a parent.

"Netflix's 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," Uthmeier alleges in the complaint, filed in St. John's County Circuit court.

"Netflix represented that paid subscriptions bought escape from Big Tech’s surveillance-driven business model," the complaint reads. "Floridians generated years of lucrative behavioral data within the context of those representations."

Uthmeier points to statements by Netflix executives prior to 2022, when it launched an ad-supported tier.

Among other pre-2022 statements, the complaint flags a 2019 shareholder letter that stated: "We, like HBO, are advertising free. That remains a deep part of our brand proposition; when you read speculation that we are moving into selling advertising, be confident that this is false."

The complaint also accuses Netflix of automatically playing one video after another in order to "strip away the natural breaking points that cue a user to step away from their screen."

"Autoplay undermines parental control of screen time and content consumption," the complaint alleges. "For a busy parent trying to manage a household under pressure, autoplay is a vise grip designed to keep her child fixed under Netflix’s microscope."

Uthmeier also accuses Netflix of misleading parents by representing that kids profiles are not used for behavioral targeting.

The attorney general says that statement is only "half the truth" because Netflix allegedly "collects and analyzes a child’s behavioral interactions through the same surveillance programs it uses for adults."

The complaint includes claims that Netflix violates the state's 2023 privacy law as well as consumer-protection laws that prohibit unfair or deceptive business practices.

He is seeking monetary penalties and court orders requiring Netflix to destroy some data it previously collected, among other requests.

Netflix has not yet responded to MediaPost's request for comment.