President Donald Trump speaks during an American Technology Council roundtable in the State Dinning Room at the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, June 19, 2017. From left, Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Apple, Trump, Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, and Jeff Bezos, Chief Executive Officer of Amazon. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Trump says that Microsoft will ‘ensure’ Americans don’t ‘pick up the tab’ for its data center power consumption

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  • President Donald Trump asks tech companies to “pay their own way” for their data centers.
  • Data centers drove up utility bills in at least 13 states, Business Insider previously reported.
  • Trump says that Microsoft will be the first to work with the White House to keep utility bills down.

President Donald Trump said on Monday that even though data centers are “key” to the AI boom, tech companies must “‘pay their own way,'” so that Americans don’t have higher utility bills.

“First up is Microsoft, who my team has been working with, and which will make major changes beginning this week to ensure that Americans don’t ‘pick up the tab’ for their POWER consumption, in the form of paying higher Utility bills,” Trump said on Truth Social, hinting at additional announcements “in the coming weeks.”

Data centers drove up utility bills in at least 13 states, Business Insider previously reported.

Over the past year, Microsoft has been planning for data centers in Wisconsin, Atlanta, Texas, and Michigan.

The White House and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is a developing story; check back for updates.




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Hate your old Gmail address? Google is quietly letting some people change it without losing data

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It looks like you may soon be able to change that old email address you made in high school.

Google account users have long been unable to change their email addresses without creating a whole new account, but Google seems to be quietly rolling out an option to update them. That’s according to a support page published by the company, which outlines a new process to change the email or username used to identify your account.

The update on Google’s account help page says certain account holders can now change their @gmail.com address without losing access to their data or services. The feature was first reported in the Google Pixel Hub Telegram group in a message that said the update is being gradually rolled out to users. As of Friday morning, the modified instructions were available on the Hindi version of Google’s support page.

The support page suggests this option is currently only available in some regions, including Hindi-speaking areas.

According to a translated version of the Hindi support page, the new email must end in @gmail.com, and it can only be changed up to three times. Once the address has been changed, it’s irreversible.

To make the change, you would visit your Google Account page, click “Personal Info,” and go to the “Email” section, according to the Telegram message.

It’s unclear when it will roll out more widely, and Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. As of Friday morning, the English support page said usernames ending in @gmail.com usually can’t be changed.

Once the change is made, the Hindi page said, your old Gmail address will be used as an alias to receive emails. You can reuse your old Google account email address at any time, but you can’t create a new Gmail address for the next 12 months.

You can sign in to Google services like Gmail, YouTube, Google Play, or Drive with your old or new email address.




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Uber is turning trip and takeout data into insights for marketers

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Uber wants advertisers to level up their marketing by tapping into data on the millions of rides and deliveries its users order every day.

The ride-hailing giant is announcing the launch of a new insights platform called Uber Intelligence on Monday, the company exclusively told Business Insider.

Launched in partnership with the data-connectivity platform LiveRamp, Uber Intelligence will let advertisers securely combine their customer data with Uber’s to help surface insights about their audiences, based on what they eat and where they travel.

It uses LiveRamp’s clean room technology, which lets companies aggregate their data in a privacy-safe environment, without sharing or seeing each other’s raw or personally identifiable customer information.

A hotel brand could use Uber Intelligence to help identify which restaurants or entertainment venues it might want to partner with for its loyalty program, for example.

Uber also hopes the platform can act as a flywheel for its broader ad business. Marketers can use the data clean room for segmentation, such as identifying customers who are heavy business travelers, then targeting them with ads on their next trip to the airport in the Uber app or on screens inside Uber cars.

“That seamlessness is why we’re so excited,” Edwin Wong, global head of measurement at Uber Advertising, told Business Insider in an interview. He added that the aim is for marketers to begin saying, “‘Oh, I’m not just understanding Uber, I’m understanding Uber in my marketing context.'”

Uber’s other route to revenue

Uber Intelligence is the latest step in the evolution of Uber’s ad business. Uber officially launched its dedicated advertising division in 2022. It offers an array of ad formats in the Uber and Uber Eats apps, on in-car tablets, in emails to its users, and on car tops.

The company said in May that its ad business had reached a $1.5 billion revenue run rate — the figure it has projected to hit by the end of 2025 — which would represent a 60% increase on last year. The company doesn’t break out a more specific ad-revenue figure and hasn’t provided an update on the run-rate number since May.

Uber Intelligence forms part of a bespoke set of services it offers its top advertisers. Earlier this year, it launched a creative studio where brands can partner with Uber to deliver more bespoke campaigns, such as offering rides to Miami F1 Grand Prix attendees in a luxury vehicle sponsored by La Mer, packed with freebie skincare products.

Andrew Frank, analyst at the research firm Gartner, said the launch of Uber Intelligence is another signal that Uber’s ad business is maturing.

“Early-stage ad businesses tend to focus exclusively on selling inventory while more mature ones focus more on delivering differentiated value through targeting and measurement solutions that help brands understand and optimize the impact of their spend,” Frank told Business Insider.

Uber’s unique source of “terrestrial data” put it in good standing against the likes of Amazon, Google, and other retail media networks that emphasize the value of their data-driven insights, Frank added. However, he said Uber may need to address privacy concerns related to aggregating highly sensitive data in order to maintain consumer trust and to comply with evolving global regulators as a collector of first-party data.

Vihan Sharma, chief revenue officer of LiveRamp, said its platform provides technical guarantees to ensure “zero movement of data.”

“The whole objective of a clean room technology is to build trust between data owners and consumers and the advertising ecosystem,” Sharma said.




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Watchdog sounds the alarm that PJM’s approval of data centers could leave other customers in the dark

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The nation’s largest grid operator is facing a choice — between serving more data centers or keeping the lights on for all its existing customers.

In a complaint filed on November 25 with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Monitoring Analytics, LLC, an independent market monitor for PJM, requested that the regulator mandate that the energy wholesaler only add large data centers to its system if all customers can be reliably served.

“PJM is currently proposing to allow the interconnection of large new data center loads that it cannot serve reliably and that will require load curtailments (black outs) of the data centers or of other customers at times,” the complaint read.

“That result is not consistent with the basic responsibility of PJM to maintain a reliable grid and is therefore not just and reasonable,” the complaint added.

PJM serves over 65 million people, including households and other consumers, across all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia. While it is not a utility provider, it helps move electricity across a service area of about 369,000 square miles.

According to the complaint, large data centers are responsible for higher transmission costs, as well as energy and capacity prices. Monitoring Analytics added that existing and expected data center loads already increased PJM’s capacity revenues in its last two capacity auctions by $16.6 billion, and the figure would only “continue to grow.”

The complaint also described a “Critical Issues” meeting among PJM’s Board of Managers to address the issue of data centers, but the board ultimately could not come to an agreement since “most stakeholders simply assume that PJM must agree to add large loads to the system.”

The purpose of the complaint, wrote Monitoring Analytics, is to make the board’s job “significantly more manageable” if a regulator could clarify that PJM does have the authority to “require that the loads can be served reliably before allowing the loads to be added to the system.”

A spokesperson of PJM told Business Insider that the company is still “going through the complaint” and would not comment at this time. The spokesperson added that the Board of Managers is “expected to act on the large load issues raised” in the meeting and “should provide an indication of its next steps over the next few weeks.”

Large data centers have been driving up utility costs nationwide, particularly in states like Virginia, where the “data center alley” is located. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation wrote in a November report that data centers are one of the leading causes of a rise in energy demand this winter, which increases the risk of blackouts.

The Trump administration plans to invest $500 billion to build AI infrastructure in collaboration with OpenAI, Oracle, and Softbank. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in a letter in October that the US should add 100 gigawatts of new power capacity annually to stay competitive in the AI race.




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Shein faces Texas probe into materials, labor, and data privacy

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Texas has launched a probe into Shein, accusing it of selling unsafe, toxic products to US consumers.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a Monday news release that his office was investigating the fast-fashion giant for potential violations of Texas law, “related to unethical labor practices and the sale of unsafe consumer products.”

Paxton referenced Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign in the release, saying that safe and non-toxic products were a key ingredient in the movement.

“Any company that cuts corners on labor standards or product safety, especially those operating in foreign nations like China, will be held accountable,” Paxton said in the release.

Shein is headquartered in Singapore and sources many of its products from China.

“Texans deserve to know that the companies they buy from are ethical, safe, transparent, and not exploiting workers or selling harmful products. I will not allow cheap, dangerous, foreign goods to flood America and jeopardize our health,” Paxton said.

The release said that the investigation will also examine Shein’s data collection and privacy practices.

Representatives for Shein did not respond to a request for comment about the Texas investigation from Business Insider.

This is the latest setback that Shein is facing in the US, its largest market.

Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration has cracked down on the de minimis trade loophole, which previously allowed low-cost parcels to enter the country tax-free. Shein said in April that it would raise prices to account for higher operating expenses, a result of changes in trade laws.

Paxton, who is running for Senate in 2026, is not the first government official globally to launch a probe into Shein.

South Korean health officials raised concerns several times last year about Shein’s products containing toxic substances above legal limits. In response to the probes, Shein told Singaporean outlet The Straits Times in June 2024 that it had removed the offending products from its catalogue.

In May, the European Commission said it had investigated Shein’s practices and found that the company had breached EU law by offering fake discounts, using deceptive product labels, and making misleading sustainability claims.

Shein also came under fire in France in early November for selling childlike sex dolls and illegal weapons on its third-party marketplace in the country, per a Reuters report. France suspended the marketplace shortly after.

The European Commission said on Wednesday that it had sent a request to Shein to provide evidence that it would not expose minors to inappropriate content and that it would prevent the circulation of illegal products.

A Shein spokesperson told Politico that the company had received the request and was “working to promptly address it.”




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Meta’s plan to train its AI on all your old Facebook data is raising eyebrows among privacy advocates

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Meta is scrambling to compete in the red-hot AI arms race, but an advocacy group is demanding nearly a dozen European countries force Meta to pump the breaks.

The European advocacy group announced complaints in 11 European countries over an upcoming Meta policy change that would allow it to scrape old user data from Facebook to train its artificial intelligence models.

Meta “plans to use years of personal posts, private images, or online tracking data for an undefined ‘AI technology’ that can ingest personal data from any source and share any information with undefined ‘third parties,'” the group, aptly named None of Your Business, or NOYB, said in a press announcement asking authorities to step in and suspend the policy.

Meta’s updated privacy policy is scheduled to go live in late June. It would impact some 400 million European users, NOYB said. The group said it was concerning that users would have to manually opt out of providing data in the future.

“Instead of asking users for their consent (opt-in), Meta argues that it has a legitimate interest that overrides the fundamental right to data protection and privacy of European users,” NOYB said. Europe has strict data privacy laws outlined in the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, which went into effect in 2018 and has had a profound effect on Big Tech’s operations in Europe.

NOYB filed complaints in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Spain.

A Meta spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, but the company previously told Reuters that its new policy followed the law.

“We are confident that our approach complies with privacy laws, and our approach is consistent with how other tech companies are developing and improving their AI experiences in Europe (including Google and Open AI),” a Meta spokesperson said, according to Reuters.

In the United States, Meta AI has already had access to public user data and private chat conversations on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and there is no way to fully opt out of sharing your information, The Washington Post reported.


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