Amazon drops nondisclosure agreements for US data center deals

Amazon will no longer ask local and state government partners to sign nondisclosure agreements on its US data center projects. The shift was confirmed in late September 2026, and it lands at a moment when Big Tech’s habit of building in the dark is drawing attention from Congress. For years, town officials have negotiated some of the largest construction projects in their communities while legally barred from discussing them. What Amazon is changing The NDAs in question covered the kind of information residents tend to care about most. Critics have long argued that the agreements kept project scale, utility consumption and tax incentives out of public view. Amazon’s new policy removes the requirement for government officials on the other side of the table. That means the size of a facility and the breaks offered to attract it could be discussed openly earlier in the process. On September 30, 2026, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland launched a congressional inquiry into how Amazon, Google and Meta use NDAs with public officials. Raskin’s inquiry centers on what these agreements mean for local governance. It also looks at how secrecy shapes the community debates that are supposed to happe...