Who bought Spirit Airlines' data?

Google began at $5.0M and ended at double that. Once the ombudsman's first report came out, it dropped passenger name and transaction records, refunds, onboard sales, timecards and WiFi revenue and still paid the same price. Its filings argue that de-identified data does not count as consumer data being sold.

Google appears on this page only because of its Spirit bid. As far as we know it runs no general program for buying company data.

Mercor bid $5.2M under Google's de-identification approach and $7.0M under its own, then $10.0M if it could do the scrubbing itself. Spirit went with Google, keeping Mercor's $7.5M as the fallback should Google's deal fall apart.

Outside bankruptcy, Mercor licenses data from active businesses. It says sellers pay no fees and are paid by wire 2 to 4 weeks after they sign. The ombudsman noted that, should the court weigh Mercor, she would examine the security incident Mercor disclosed in March 2026. More in Mercor's review.

On 2026-09-03 micro1 offered $12.5M cash, funded from its existing balance, which is $2.5M more than Google and $5M more than Mercor. It would cover the de-identification cost itself, let an outside reviewer check a 1% sample and keep the archive inside the US.

micro1 also licenses data from businesses that are still running, quoting $100K to $2M+ and a 30-employee minimum. From 2026-10-09 its ads have also targeted people whose company has closed. See micro1's Spirit bid and micro1's review.