The $10 Million Spirit Airlines Data Sale: What Business Owners Should Learn

Spirit Airlines stopped flying in May 2026, and its internal data went up for auction: about 100 million emails and 500 million team chat messages. Google won with a $10 million bid, beating a $7.5 million bid, and a late $12.5 million offer was reported in September. Then the objections came: 3 unions asked the court to protect employee data, more than 110 members of Congress wrote that stripping names does not make data anonymous, and the court's privacy ombudsman had bookings, payments, refunds and in-flight sales left out. 4 lessons for any owner thinking about licensing company data, and...