Florida Attorney General James Utmyer continues to fight big tech companies, and this time his target was Netflix. On Wednesday, state prosecutors filed a lawsuit against the streaming service, accusing the company of collecting user data, including minors, to build an advertising business that Netflix allegedly promised never to create.
The 66-page lawsuit was filed in the Seventh Judicial District of Florida. The document claims that Netflix used a huge amount of data collected from users, including children’s profiles, to form targeted advertising. Prosecutors also say the company provided third parties with access to this data without consumers’ consent.
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At the heart of the case are Netflix’s repeated promises, which prosecutors back up with direct quotes from the company’s founder and former chairman, Reed Hastings, and other executives. According to these statements, part of what users paid for with their subscriptions was freedom from advertising and data collection. The situation changed in 2022, when the streaming service launched an ad-supported tariff.
Netflix was telling Florida families they could pay a monthly fee to avoid surveillance by big tech companies. It was a lie. Netflix collected detailed data on children and families, designed its product to keep children glued to their screens, and then monetized that information by launching an advertising business it promised it would never create. Parents, not corporate executives, determine the education of their children. Netflix should expect accountability.
Utmyer points to a huge database of what the company calls “user events” as evidence of the scale of the information-gathering operation. According to him, Netflix has long collected everything from the location of a user’s gadget to search history, interactions with the platform like pausing or rewinding, as well as the moments when users stop watching programs. Prosecutors allege that the company used all this data to build an “empire based on deception.”
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A Netflix spokesperson stated the following:
Netflix takes the privacy of its users seriously. We comply with privacy and data protection laws everywhere we operate and have special safeguards in place for children watching content on Netflix. This lawsuit has no merit, and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves in court.
According to Netflix, the company discloses information about the collection and use of personal data in its privacy policy and terms of use. The documents include, among other things, the right of users to understand and request accounting of how their personal information is used. The company added that members can turn off behavioral advertising at any time, and said that children’s profiles do not need separate ad settings because they are not shown such ads at all.
