Florida sues Netflix over children's data, alleges company built ad empire on broken privacy promise
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a 66-page lawsuit against Netflix (NFLX) on Wednesday, alleging the streaming company spent years assuring subscribers it would never build an advertising business while…
Key takeaways
- Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a 66-page lawsuit against Netflix on Wednesday, alleging the company deceptively promised it would never build an advertising business while collecting detailed behavioral data from adults and children.
- The complaint centers on Netflix's Kids Profiles and its November 2022 launch of an ad-supported tier, citing Netflix's own public statements as the basis of the alleged deception.
- Florida alleges Netflix ran the same telemetry systems on children's accounts as on adult accounts and that autoplay, enabled by default on Kids Profiles, was designed to extend viewing and generate more behavioral data from children.
- The state is seeking a permanent injunction, deletion of allegedly deceptively collected data, a purge of Kids Profiles behavioral data, a ban on alleged dark-pattern designs, and civil penalties under Florida law.
- Netflix did not respond to a request for comment, and its formal response to the complaint is the next filing to watch.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a 66-page lawsuit against Netflix (NFLX) on Wednesday, alleging the streaming company spent years assuring subscribers it would never build an advertising business while quietly collecting detailed behavioral data from adults and children alike. The complaint centers on Kids Profiles and the November 2022 launch of Netflix's ad-supported tier, and it names Netflix's long-standing public statements as the foundation of the alleged deception.
What the complaint alleges
The positioning story runs straight through Netflix's own public record. Former CEO Reed Hastings, on a 2020 earnings call, said the company was "not integrating everybody's data," added "We don't collect anything," and described Netflix as "the safe respite" from platforms that monetize users through advertising. Florida's lawsuit argues those assurances were false while Netflix was building what the complaint calls a massive behavioral-data operation that records billions of user interactions: what subscribers watch, search, pause, rewind, skip, and abandon, along with device and location information.
Kids Profiles sit at the center of the children's data allegations. Netflix marketed those accounts as "Great for kids" and a child's "own space," according to the lawsuit. Florida alleges Netflix ran the same telemetry systems on children's accounts as on adult accounts and that autoplay, enabled by default on Kids Profiles, was intentionally designed to extend viewing sessions and generate additional behavioral data from children. The state further alleges that after the November 2022 ad-tier launch, Netflix allowed advertisers and ad-tech companies to use subscriber data for audience targeting and campaign measurement.
What the state is asking for
Uthmeier is seeking a permanent injunction against the alleged practices, deletion of data Florida says was deceptively collected from Floridians, a prohibition on using historical subscriber data to support the advertising business, a purge of behavioral data gathered through Kids Profiles, a ban on the alleged dark-pattern designs, and civil penalties authorized under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and the Florida Digital Bill of Rights. "Netflix told Florida families they could pay a monthly fee to escape Big Tech surveillance. That was false," Uthmeier said in the announcement. Netflix did not respond to a request for comment.
The next filing to watch is Netflix's formal response to the complaint, which will establish whether the company contests the factual record, the statutory theories, or both.