Utilities are privy to information about energy use from data centers in their region; they use that information to forecast growth. But data centers will often shop around to different utilities, which, experts say, causes utilities to double-count projects and forecast “phantom” growth—data centers that will never be built in their region. The CEO of Vistra, a retail electricity company, said during its first quarter earnings call last year that utilities may be inflating electricity demand anywhere from three to five times beyond what is actually needed.

In December, EIA Administrator Tristan Abbey said at a roundtable that he expects the EIA “is going to be an essential player in providing objective data and analysis to policymakers” with respect to data centers. The agency announced on Wednesday that it would be conducting a voluntary pilot program to collect energy consumption information from nearly 200 companies operating data centers in Texas, Washington, and Virginia, which will cover “energy sources, electricity consumption, site characteristics, server metrics, and cooling systems.”

While the senators praise the EIA pilot program, their letter includes several questions about how the agency plans to move forward with more data collection, such as whether or not the energy surveys will be mandatory and whether or not the EIA will collect information on behind-the-meter power. This information will be especially crucial, the senators say, to make sure that Big Tech companies that signed the agreement at the White House earlier this month pledging that consumers won’t bear the costs of data center electricity use will stick to their promises.

“Without this data, policymakers, utility companies, and local communities are operating in the dark,” the senators write.

The EIA mandates that other industries, including oil and gas and manufacturing, provide regular data to the agency; Hawley and Warren assert that the EIA should be able to collect similar information from data centers under the same provision. The provision is broad enough, Peskoe says, that it could absolutely be interpreted to encompass data centers.

The letter comes amid widespread concern in Washington and around the country over data center development. On Wednesday, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill that would introduce a national moratorium on data center construction and development until AI safety laws were passed. The same day, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin introduced a bill to mandate data centers disclose their energy and water use. And state legislatures have brought forth hundreds of data center bills, with at least a dozen states considering a moratorium on construction altogether.

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/senators-want-us-energy-information-agency-to-monitor-data-center-electricity-usage/

On Thursday, Elon Musk lost his lawsuit alleging that advertisers violated antitrust law by colluding on an ad boycott after he took over Twitter, gutted content moderation teams, and disbanded the Trust and Safety Council.

In her opinion, US District Judge Jane Boyle wrote that the lawsuit was dismissed because Musk failed to state a claim. His arguments that advertisers acted against their own best interests by avoiding advertising on his platform, now called X, did not plead facts showing that consumers were harmed. Without consumer harm, there can be no antitrust violation, the judge wrote, deeming the ad boycott perfectly legal.

“The very nature of the alleged conspiracy does not state an antitrust claim, and the Court therefore has no qualm dismissing with prejudice,” Boyle said. At one point, she emphasized, “the question underlying antitrust injury is whether consumers—not competitors—have been harmed.”

For Musk, the loss is likely significant. He had argued that advertisers should be “criminally prosecuted” after allies in Congress released a report claiming they were conspiring to tank Twitter’s revenue with the supposed goal of censoring conservative voices.

The lawsuit was also part of a larger “thermonuclear” legal fight that Musk started when he sued Media Matters for America for their reporting that he claimed prompted the boycott. That lawsuit remains ongoing but may be hobbled by the judge ruling that there was no illegal boycott.

As of this writing, Musk has not commented on the ruling, and X did not respond to Ars’ request to comment.

It seems likely, though, given Musk’s heated public statements about the litigation, that X will appeal.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/elon-musk-loses-big-in-court-x-boycott-perfectly-legal/

Starzak explained that “it’s called authoritative because it’s the side that’s giving the information. It’s then taken by the [DNS] resolver and brought back to you as a user, which enables you to then connect to that content. It’s not part of the underlying content… the resolver comes and asks for directions and they get an answer of how to get there by the authoritative DNS server.”

Under the proposed permanent injunction, domain companies would have to disable Anna’s Archive domain names and nameservers. Hosting companies would have to “cease any hosting services for Defendant’s Websites or any other websites that host the infringing content or directly facilitate its distribution.”

The proposed restrictions would also apply to “Internet service providers for Defendant’s Websites.” This would apparently prevent ISPs from providing services that help Anna’s Archive stay online, but the proposed order does not instruct ISPs to block broadband subscribers from accessing any Anna’s Archive URL that manages to stay on the web.

Spotify and record labels asked the court to apply the requested permanent injunction to the Public Interest Registry, Cloudflare, the Switch Foundation, the Swedish Internet Foundation, the National Internet Exchange of India, Njalla SRL, IQWeb FZ-LLC, Immaterialism Ltd., Hosting Concepts B.V., Tucows Domains, and OwnRegistrar, Inc. It would additionally apply to all other domain, hosting, or Internet companies that have previously or could potentially provide services to the Anna’s Archive websites.

While Anna’s Archive lives on for now, Spotify and record labels point out that the founder has acknowledged being at risk of arrest and criminal charges that could ultimately sink the enterprise.

“Defendant has admitted that its shadow library business model is illegal and that it ‘deliberately violate[s] the copyright law in most countries,’” Spotify and record labels wrote. “Defendant also admits that it is intentionally ‘very careful’ to remain anonymous and ‘not leave any trace,’ because those who operate pirate libraries (like Defendant) are ‘at high risk of being arrested’ and ‘could face decades of prison time.’”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/spotify-lawsuit-tries-to-kick-annas-archive-off-the-web-without-much-success/

On Wednesday, a Los Angeles jury ordered Meta and YouTube to pay $3 million in damages to a young woman who successfully argued that the companies’ social media apps were designed to addict children.

Meta will pay the majority of the fine, 70 percent, while YouTube-owner Google is on the hook for 30 percent, the jury decided.

During the six-week trial, the jury heard that Meta and Google designed apps with features like auto-play, infinite scroll, and algorithmic recommendations to keep kids online. Feeling trapped in a cycle of constantly using these apps caused the plaintiff, known as K.G.M., “crippling mental distress,” CNBC reported. She developed “severe body dysmorphia, depression, and suicidal thoughts,” and every notification that came through made it harder to stop logging in.

At the trial, Meta and Google tried to deflect from the role that apps played in K.G.M.’s mental decline, arguing that she used the apps to cope with mental health problems that “stemmed from a turbulent childhood and related family issues,” CNBC reported.

Internal documents revealed to the jury showed that Meta’s employees openly discussed how addictive design features were, bragging that “teens can’t switch off from Instagram even if they want to.” One employee even declared, “oh my gosh yall IG is a drug,” while likening all social media platforms to “pushers.”

However, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri declined to acknowledge on the stand that K.G.M. had become addicted to Meta apps, instead suggesting that her usage was merely “problematic.”

Along similar lines, YouTube Vice President of Engineering Cristos Goodrow argued that YouTube could not be liable for her harms because it was “not designed to maximize time.” The platform also maintained throughout the trial that it is not a social media site.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/meta-youtube-must-pay-3m-to-woman-who-got-hooked-on-apps-as-a-child/

Record labels Sony, Warner, and Universal told the Supreme Court that Cox chose not to terminate repeat copyright infringers to avoid a loss in revenue, despite being sent three or more infringement notices for each subscriber at issue in the case. “[W]hile Cox stokes fears of innocent grandmothers and hospitals being tossed off the Internet for someone else’s infringement, Cox put on zero evidence that any subscriber here fit that bill,” record labels told the court. “By its own admission, the subscribers here were ‘habitual offenders’ Cox chose to retain because, unlike the vast multitude cut off for late payment, they contributed to Cox’s bottom line.”

ISP has “incomplete knowledge” of infringement

At oral arguments, Cox attorney Joshua Rosenkranz said the ISP created an anti-infringement program, sent out hundreds of warnings a day, suspended thousands of accounts a month, and worked with universities to limit infringement. Rosenkranz told the court that “the highest recidivist infringers” cited in the case were universities, hotels, and regional ISPs that purchase connectivity from Cox, rather than individual households.

“According to Cox, it created a system of responding to the notices that it received from MarkMonitor,” Thomas wrote. “After the second MarkMonitor notice for a subscriber’s account, Cox sent a warning to that subscriber. After additional notices, Cox terminated Internet access to that subscriber’s IP address until the subscriber responded to the warning. If it continued to receive notices for that IP address, Cox suspended service until the subscriber called and received a warning over the phone. After 13 notices, the subscriber was subject to termination of all Internet service.” Cox also contractually prohibits subscribers from using the service to infringe copyrights, Thomas noted.

In addition to criticizing the majority’s reasoning today, Sotomayor criticized Cox’s anti-piracy enforcement efforts during oral arguments. “There are things you could have done to respond to those infringers, and the end result might have been cutting off their connections, but you stopped doing anything for many of them… You did nothing and, in fact, counselor, your clients’ sort of laissez-faire attitude toward the respondents is probably what got the jury upset,” she said at the time.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/supreme-court-rejects-sonys-attempt-to-kick-music-pirates-off-the-internet/

A jury has been deliberating for more than a week in that case, and though they’ve reached a decision on liability, they’re currently deadlocked on the amount of financial damages to award. On Monday, they confirmed to a judge that they can’t reach consensus for one of the defendants, a Los Angeles NBC affiliate reported, but it’s unclear which.

In a separate federal trial in California, parents and multiple school districts are targeting Meta and other apps for allegedly causing mental health harms to kids.

While some social media companies have chosen to settle rather than endure costly legal battles over child safety, Meta has stuck these fights out. Unsurprisingly, Meta’s spokesperson confirmed to Ars on Tuesday that the company plans to appeal the New Mexico verdict.

“We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal,” Meta’s spokesperson said. “We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”

Torrez remains intent on proving that Meta can and should do more to protect kids, he told CNBC Tuesday. He’s hoping that any changes required in New Mexico will alter how Meta’s apps are used around the world.

“One of the things that I am really focused on is how we can change the design features of these products, at least within New Mexico, and that would create a standard that could then be modeled elsewhere in the country, and, frankly, around the world,” Torrez said.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/meta-loses-trial-after-arguing-child-exploitation-was-inevitable-on-its-apps/

However, some British iPhone owners are concerned about potential security and privacy risks associated with the proliferation of age checks.

“Myself and everyone I know… are doing everything to bypass these over-reaching age checks,” said one Reddit user in a discussion about Apple’s update. “I definitely do not want to grant my OS permission to decide that I’m happy to share my proven age status, under any situation.”

Apple did not respond to a request for comment about which services its new age checks will cover.

After upgrading to the latest version of iOS 26.4, iPhone owners in the UK will be presented with several options to prove their age, including checking the credit card stored in their digital wallet or taking a photo of their driving license or passport. Apple can also use the length of time that digital accounts have been active to confirm a customer’s age.

After installing the update, an on-screen notice tells users: “UK law requires you to confirm you are an adult to change content restrictions.”

Failure to complete the age check will limit which apps the user can access or download, though Apple’s support pages do not specify all of the affected services.

“Adults will have to confirm that they’re 18 or older to use certain services or features, or take certain actions on their account,” an Apple support page states.

Ofcom said it had “worked closely with Apple” and other services to protect users.

“This will build on the strong foundations of the Online Safety Act, from widespread age checks that keep young people away from harmful content, to blocking high-risk sites and stepping up action against child sexual abuse material,” the UK regulator said.

© 2026 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/apple-begins-age-checks-in-the-uk-with-latest-ios-update/

Saleem Ali, an environmental systems scientist at the University of Delaware who also provides research and advice on critical metals to the United Nations, says that deep-sea mining should be part of discussions on the green transition. He coauthored a 2022 analysis, funded by The Metals Company, that compared mining waste from terrestrial deposits to that of seabed resources. (Ali says he has never received direct funding from The Metals Company.) For example, the analysis looked at the impact of terrestrial mine tailings on water pollution and local biodiversity, and at the anticipated pollution from nodule mining, such as seabed sediment kicked into the water column by harvesting machines. It suggests that both types of mining will have effects on biodiversity, but deep-sea mining could result in less waste and fewer risks for communities than terrestrial mining. The study cautions, however, that its conclusions are limited by “substantial uncertainty” regarding impacts of sediment plumes.

Ali adds that the International Seabed Authority has been collecting data for at least 30 years, which should be sufficient to develop rules and regulations to govern seabed mining even if it’s unclear what the long-term impacts are, and whether the environmental impacts are likely to be better or worse than mining on land.

“I’m not saying that we should go ahead with it. I’m saying that it deserves to be considered in this broad context of very difficult choices we have to make,” he says.

But opponents calling for moratoriums or bans note that the same study that The Metals Company refers to as evidence of quick recovery eventually reached more pessimistic conclusions from its data as a whole. “The effects of polymetallic nodule mining are likely to be long term,” the authors wrote, and the analyses “show considerable negative biological effects of seafloor nodule mining, even at the small scale of test mining experiments.” Scientists are concerned that deep-sea organisms, which are adapted to living in a dark, quiet, and sparsely populated environment, will not cope well with the noise and light disturbances from mining. The organisms will also be exposed to toxic metals and plumes of sediment that can interfere with feeding and breathing. The Metals Company did not respond to several requests for comment.

The seafloor of Clarion-Clipperton Zone is home to many creatures, some of which are shown here: anemone (top left), sea cucumber, Psychropotes longicauda (top right), sea urchin Plesiodiadema sp. (bottom right), and starfish (bottom left). The biology and ecology of these depths remain poorly understood, making it hard to know what the ecological impacts of deep-sea mining would be.

Credit: ROV TEAM / GEOMAR (CC-BY 4.0)

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/mining-the-deep-ocean/

The DOE spokesperson said its radiation standards “are aligned with Gold Standard Science… with a focus on protecting people and the environment while avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy.”

The department has already decided to abandon the long-standing radiation protection principle known as “ALARA”—the “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” standard—which directs anyone dealing with radioactive materials to minimize exposure.

It often pushes exposure well below legal thresholds. Many experts agreed that the ALARA principle was sometimes applied too strictly, but the move to entirely throw it out was opposed by many prominent radiation health experts.

Whether the agencies will actually change the legal thresholds for radiation exposure is an open question, said sources familiar with the deliberations.

Internal DOE documents arguing for changing dose rules cite a report produced at the Idaho National Laboratory, which was compiled with the help of the AI assistant Claude. “It’s really strange,” said Kathryn Higley, president of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, a congressionally chartered group studying radiation safety. “They fundamentally mistake the science.”

John Wagner, the head of the Idaho National Laboratory and the report’s lead author, acknowledged to ProPublica that the science over changing radiation exposure rules is hotly contested. “We recognize that respected experts interpret aspects of this literature differently,” he wrote. His analysis was not meant to be the final word, he said, but was “intended to inform debate.”

The impact of radiation levels at very low doses is hard to measure, so the US has historically struck a cautious note. Raising dose limits could put the US out of step with international standards.

For his part, Cohen has told the nuclear industry that he sees his job as making sure the government “is no longer a barrier” to them.

In June, he shot down the notion of companies putting money into a fund for workplace accidents. “Put yourself in the shoes of one of these startups,” he said. “They’re raising hundreds of millions of dollars to do this. And then they would have to go to their VCs and their board and say, listen, guys, we actually need a few hundred million dollars more to put into a trust fund?”

He also suggested that regulators should not fret about preparing for so-called 100-year events—disasters that have roughly a 1 percent chance of taking place but can be catastrophic for nuclear facilities.

“When SpaceX started building rockets, they sort of expected the first ones to blow up,” he said.

This story originally appeared on ProPublica.

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Read the original story here. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Pratheek Rebala and Kirsten Berg contributed research.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/doge-goes-nuclear-how-trump-invited-silicon-valley-into-americas-nuclear-power-regulator/

On Friday, a jury in California determined that Elon Musk had misled investors in Twitter via public statements that depressed the price of the company’s stock ahead of Musk’s purchase of the service. Because this was a class action lawsuit, Musk is likely to owe damages to a huge range of investors—payments that may ultimately reach billions of dollars.

In the lead-up to Musk’s ultimate purchase of the social media platform, he made a number of comments on the platform itself and while appearing as a guest on a podcast, largely focused on the alleged prevalence of bot accounts on the platform. This raised fears that the deal wouldn’t go through and depressed the price of Twitter’s shares, causing some investors to sell shares at a depressed price during this period.

A number of those investors started a suit that was certified as a class action, claiming that the statements defrauded them and that Musk made them intentionally as part of a larger scheme. The jury rejected arguments about this larger scheme but found Musk liable for the tweets.

While damages have yet to be determined, lawyers for the plaintiffs reportedly say that they could ultimately reach as high as $2.6 billion.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/jury-agrees-that-musks-tweets-during-twitter-takeover-constituted-fraud/