[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"branding":3,"analytics":7,"article-privacy-watchdog-clears-googles-10m-spirit-airlines-data-buy":10,"sections":35},{"siteName":4,"siteTagline":5,"publisherName":4,"contactEmail":6},"The Revision","Tech news, decoded.","editor@therevision.news",{"gaMeasurementId":8,"adsenseClientId":9},"G-ZW2MV82GYR","ca-pub-8533917693782264",{"article":11},{"id":12,"slug":13,"title":14,"dek":15,"body_md":16,"tags_json":17,"published_at":18,"created_at":19,"updated_at":20,"status":21,"review_note":22,"review_notes":23,"image_url":22,"persona_id":22,"persona_name":22,"section":24,"tags":25,"sources":30,"feedback":34,"feedback_at":22,"cost_usd":34,"total_tokens":34},11181,"privacy-watchdog-clears-googles-10m-spirit-airlines-data-buy","Privacy watchdog clears Google's $10m Spirit Airlines data buy","Spirit's bankruptcy privacy ombudsman backed Google's purchase of deidentified passenger data after raw databases were dropped from the deal.","Spirit Airlines' bankruptcy case has a buyer for its passenger data: Google, for $10 million, pending final sign-off.\n\nThe airline's court-appointed privacy ombudsman, Lucy Thomson, filed a report on October 5 recommending that the bankruptcy court approve the sale. Google won the data auction with a $10 million bid, according to Business Insider. Before Thomson signed off, Spirit and Google agreed to pull the actual passenger databases out of the deal, leaving Google with deidentified records instead. That carve-out appears to be what got the ombudsman comfortable enough to recommend approval.\n\nThis is the same move bankrupt companies increasingly make when customer data turns out to be a sellable asset: strip the obvious identifiers, label what's left deidentified, and get a court-appointed reviewer to bless it. For Google, a comparatively small $10 million gets it a chunk of someone else's customer behavior data, without having to build the dataset through its own products.\n\nDeidentified is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Researchers have repeatedly shown that anonymized travel and location data can be reidentified with the right cross-referencing, so treat this as a win for Google's data pile, not a guarantee of flier privacy.","[\"google\",\"spirit airlines\",\"data privacy\",\"bankruptcy\"]","2026-10-09T12:59:17.000Z","2026-10-10T11:14:50.874Z","2026-10-10T11:14:56.871Z","published",null,[],"policy",[26,27,28,29],"google","spirit airlines","data privacy","bankruptcy",[31],{"name":32,"url":33},"The Next Web","https:\u002F\u002Fthenextweb.com\u002Fnews\u002Fgoogle-spirit-airlines-data-ombudsman-approval",0,{"sections":36},[37,42,47,51,56,61,66,71,76,81,86,91,96,101],{"name":38,"slug":39,"count":40,"latest_published_at":41},"AI","ai",6850,"2026-10-10T00:18:32.000Z",{"name":43,"slug":44,"count":45,"latest_published_at":46},"Security","security",941,"2026-10-09T19:25:43.000Z",{"name":48,"slug":24,"count":49,"latest_published_at":50},"Policy",491,"2026-10-09T22:30:04.000Z",{"name":52,"slug":53,"count":54,"latest_published_at":55},"Deals","deals",483,"2026-10-09T11:20:39.000Z",{"name":57,"slug":58,"count":59,"latest_published_at":60},"Hardware","hardware",233,"2026-10-09T16:07:54.000Z",{"name":62,"slug":63,"count":64,"latest_published_at":65},"Science","science",195,"2026-10-09T11:00:57.000Z",{"name":67,"slug":68,"count":69,"latest_published_at":70},"Consumer Tech","consumer-tech",184,"2026-10-09T20:44:34.000Z",{"name":72,"slug":73,"count":74,"latest_published_at":75},"Startups","startups",120,"2026-10-09T17:02:31.000Z",{"name":77,"slug":78,"count":79,"latest_published_at":80},"Software","software",114,"2026-10-08T17:57:01.000Z",{"name":82,"slug":83,"count":84,"latest_published_at":85},"Dev Tools","dev-tools",109,"2026-10-09T13:03:48.000Z",{"name":87,"slug":88,"count":89,"latest_published_at":90},"General","general",69,"2026-10-09T19:10:07.000Z",{"name":92,"slug":93,"count":94,"latest_published_at":95},"Gaming","gaming",59,"2026-10-09T11:43:43.000Z",{"name":97,"slug":98,"count":99,"latest_published_at":100},"Reviews","reviews",34,"2026-10-08T14:00:22.000Z",{"name":102,"slug":103,"count":104,"latest_published_at":105},"How-To","how-to",8,"2026-10-05T09:00:00.000Z"]