Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Netflix, 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 “opened Texans’ data for inspection by the same Big Ad Tech community it once criticized for exploiting users in this same way.”

In the lawsuit, Paxton claims Netflix drove up subscriptions by promoting its platform as an “escape from Big Tech surveillance.” But that changed when Netflix introduced an ad-supported streaming plan in 2022, something co-founder Reed Hastings promised not to do. Its move into digital advertising allowed Netflix to use “the mountains of data it quietly extracted from the children and families,” the lawsuit alleges.

Paxton accuses Netflix of building a “behavior-surveillance program” that involves collecting information about “user events,” like their location, the device they’re 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:

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.

In addition to accusing Netflix of an advertising “bait-and-switch,” Paxton claims Netflix misled subscribers about child safety, citing its autoplay feature that’s enabled by default across adults’ and kids’ profiles. “Netflix 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,” Paxton says in the press release.

Netflix spokesperson Jamil Walker says in an emailed statement to The Verge that Paxton’s 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 accuses Netflix of violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and asks the court to block the streamer’s “unlawful collection and disclosure” of user data, as well as to disable autoplay by default on kids’ profiles.

Update, May 11th: Added a statement from Netflix.