Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued WhatsApp and parent company Meta, alleging the messaging app misleads users by marketing “end-to-end encryption” while still being able to access the contents of private messages. The suit, filed in a state district court in Harrison County under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, seeks a permanent injunction blocking the company from viewing users' messages without consent and a $10,000 fine per violation. Paxton's office cited whistleblowers who claim Meta can access WhatsApp messages, and pointed to a federal Commerce Department investigation closed earlier this year after an agency investigator wrote in a memo there was “no limit” to the type of WhatsApp messages Meta could view, per Bloomberg. Meta called the claims false and said it will fight the suit. The filing follows Paxton's May 11 suit against Netflix over data collection and adds to a string of Texas actions against big tech.
