The Attorney General of Florida, James Uthmeier, filed a lawsuit against Netflix in the 7th Judicial Circuit of St. Johns County, accusing the platform of collecting behavioral data from minors without parental consent and designing features to keep children engaged with the screen.
The legal action taken by the Florida Attorney General indicates that Netflix extensively tracked the activity of underage users —what content they watch, pause, rewind, search for, or abandon—and used that information to support its advertising business, launched in November 2022.
The state claims that the platform marketed its children's profiles as a safe space free from behavior-based advertising, but in practice, it amassed that data over the years to later monetize it, which would constitute a systematic deception of consumers in Florida.
Uthmeier was direct in announcing the lawsuit: "They designed an addictive platform to keep children glued to their screens and then collected detailed data about them without parental permission. Netflix benefited while deceiving Floridians and must be held accountable."
Florida accuses Netflix of violating the state's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA) and the Florida Digital Bill of Rights (FDBR).
Among the requested remedies are a permanent court order, the removal of data obtained in a supposedly deceptive manner, the cessation of functions such as automatic playback, and billions of dollars in damages, as well as a jury trial.
Netflix responded that it "takes privacy seriously," that it complies with applicable laws, and that the lawsuit "lacks merit," announcing that it will defend the case in court.
Offensive against the big tech companies
The action against Netflix is not an isolated case, but part of a broader campaign by the Florida Attorney General under the slogan "Stop Big Tech Surveillance."
In October 2025, Florida filed its first action under the FDBR against Roku, accusing it of collecting and selling data from minors—including voice recordings, viewing habits, and precise geolocation—without parental consent.
That case was resolved in June 2026 with an agreement requiring Roku to invest approximately 25 million dollars in privacy improvements, with no admission of guilt.
In April 2026, the Prosecutor's Office also initiated actions against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, describing it as the first state lawsuit against the company, alleging deceptive marketing and the collection of data from minors under 13 without parental consent.
The Florida government has also sued TikTok and Snapchat for failing to meet age verification requirements.
The most notable precedent in the United States
In August, 52 states agreed to sue Meta and the company proposed to pay approximately 18 billion dollars to resolve claims related to minors' addiction and violations of the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), from which Florida remained excluded due to pursuing separate actions.
Meta proposed an agreement, but denied the allegations against it and stated that "it has no responsibility towards the plaintiffs." The announcement was made in the second week of the federal trial held in Oakland, California.
The agreed amount is historic, but it represents a minimal fraction of what the prosecutors initially estimated at the start of the trial, when they calculated penalties of up to 1.4 trillion dollars. Meta described that figure as "outrageous."
Florida has its own legal framework: HB 3, effective from January 1, 2025, prohibits social media accounts for minors under 14 years old and requires platforms to verify the age of their users and delete data from closed accounts.
The lawsuit against Netflix comes as the platform solidifies its advertising model, turning the case into a test of how far state legal pressure can go against large digital entertainment companies.
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