Amazon and others are done keeping data center deals secret. Is it enough to build trust? — SkimNews
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- Amazon announced it will stop using NDAs when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar commitment from Microsoft earlier this year.
- Microsoft made a comparable move earlier in the year to drop NDAs from its own data center negotiations with local governments.
- Secrecy around data center deals has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure, producing hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums spanning from New York to San Francisco.
- A wave of startups is betting that consumers will hand AI agents access to their inboxes, files, and credit cards — provided websites will let those agents in.
- On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Anthony Ha, Sean O'Kane, and Rebecca Bellan examined whether ending NDAs will change how data center deals close and whether trust is the actual product for personal AI startups.
Why it matters: Two of the largest cloud providers have now conceded secrecy on data center deals, with hundreds of moratoriums from New York to San Francisco showing the political cost — and the same trust equation now applies to consumer-facing AI agents that need access to inboxes and credit cards.
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