May 12 (Reuters) - Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit on Monday accusing Netflix, the streaming service, of spying on children and other users by collecting their data without their consent and designing its platform to be addictive.

The state of Texas stated in the lawsuit that Netflix had for years been telling users that it did not collect or share their data, while in reality it was tracking viewers' habits and preferences and selling them to commercial data brokers and advertising technology companies, generating profits of up to billions of dollars annually.

The California-based company was also accused of secretly using "hidden patterns" to keep users accustomed to watching, including an autoplay feature that starts a new show when another one ends.

A Netflix spokesperson said the company intends to respond to these allegations in court.

"With all due respect to the great state of Texas and Attorney General Paxton, this lawsuit lacks merit and is based on inaccurate and distorted information," the spokesperson said in a statement. "Netflix takes customer privacy very seriously and adheres to privacy and data protection laws everywhere we operate."

Many companies, including social media platforms and other companies with a strong online presence, are facing lawsuits accusing them of secretly tracking users and selling the resulting data to third parties, who use the data for advertising purposes.

Paxton said the surveillance Netflix is accused of practicing violates Texas's Deceptive Business Practices Act.

He wants the company to delete the data it illegally collected, not to use the data in targeted advertising without users' consent, and to pay civil fines of up to $10,000 for each violation.