Amazon Drops NDAs in Data Center Talks After Microsoft — SkimNews
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- Amazon dropped its NDA requirement when negotiating data centers with local governments, following Microsoft's earlier similar announcement this year, though the change was buried in a broader blog post arguing data centers are good for communities.
- Rebecca Bellan on TechCrunch's Equity podcast questioned whether transparency moves will matter, noting moratoriums like the one in San Francisco typically only freeze permitting for 1-2 years while data centers take 2-5 years to come online.
- Co-host Anthony Ha pointed to "unhinged tweets" from Trump and David Sacks as evidence that data center backers are genuinely rattled by community pushback, signaling the industry sees real political risk.
- Co-host Sean O'Kane framed the issue as the tech industry's broader communication failure, tracing secret negotiating back to Uber's mid-2010s city deals — including a Verge freelancer story on Uber extracting tax subsidies near Orlando that escalated into broader asks.
- New York's data center moratorium contains built-in wiggle room: it is technically suspended until the state completes an environmental review expected to take a year, giving regulators a clear off-ramp to approve projects later.
Why it matters: Dropping NDAs targets the opacity that has fueled opposition from San Francisco to New York, but the 1-2 year moratorium windows versus 2-5 year build timelines mean community groups may have limited leverage to actually halt projects. For hyperscalers, ending NDAs is cheap and reversible; sustaining public buy-in without them is the harder, still-undisclosed experiment.
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