TALLAHASSEE – Attorney General James Uthmeier’s push against major tech companies is expanding to include Netflix.
He filed a lawsuit against the entertainment streaming company Wednesday, claiming it violated state law by telling consumers it wouldn’t track and sell their data to advertisers, and that it’s keeping targeting children to keep them “tethered to the screen.”
The lawsuit, filed in the 7th Judicial Circuit in St. Johns County, details how Netflix told consumers for years it didn’t track user data, before switching to sell their subscribers’ information to advertisers.
“Netflix’s representations that it would remain ad-free, refrain from collecting and integrating user data, and design kids profiles to protect children were made at the highest levels of the company,” the lawsuit states. “But behind the scenes, Netflix was accumulating years of consumer data and building the behavioral-surveillance infrastructure that it would ultimately deploy for its advertising business in November 2022.”
For Uthmeier the lawsuit is part of his efforts to combat large technology companies that have failed to ensure protections for consumers, especially children.
“This lawsuit is about parents, because it’s parents who should oversee the privacy of their kids, not a big tech company that’s profiting despite public safety,” Uthmeier told reporters in Miami. “Parents, not streaming corporations need to direct the upbringing of children.”
The lawsuit comes one day after Uthmeier said he’ll push for new laws to put criminal penalties on artificial intelligence companies whose products abet in crimes. He’s already investigating OpenAI for how the alleged gunman who killed two and wounded five at Florida State University last year used its ChatGPT product to carry out the shooting.
A lawsuit against Roblox, an online gaming platform, over its alleged failures to protect children from sexual predators, is also pending. And Uthmeier didn’t sign on to the recent settlement with Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, making Florida one of the only states not included in the settlement. Uthmeier said the protections Meta is pledging to put in place for teenage users aren’t enough.
In March, Uthmeier said his office will investigate the messaging platform Discord over concerns the company was allowing children to be groomed by predators. And in April 2025 he sued Snap, Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, a popular messaging platform, for violating a new state law barring social media companies from including design features to keep users scrolling.
Uthmeier also chided Netflix for using “tricks” to keep kids on their platform.
“If a company is going to be monitoring every single click and scroll and swipe then you need to put people on notice,” Uthmeier said. “We do not want them creating addictive features for kids.”
