Google won an auction to acquire a large dataset containing employee information from Spirit Airlines, which filed for bankruptcy and is selling assets to satisfy creditors. The data includes email records, human resources files, payroll information, and other workplace data spanning several decades, but does not contain customer personal information. Google agreed to have a third‑party scrub the data to remove personally identifiable information and to refrain from re‑identifying individuals, with a court‑appointed ombudsman overseeing the process. The Association of Flight Attendants, the collective bargaining unit representing Spirit employees, filed an objection, arguing that consumer‑privacy protections do not extend to employee data and that the de‑identification procedure may not sufficiently safeguard confidential employment records. The union asked the court to block the sale until Google commits to excluding flight‑attendant records and provides notice before any third party accesses the data. Google said it will not use the data to identify individuals and will rely on certified de‑identification standards. The auction, held on August 14, saw Google place an opening bid of $5 million and ultimately win with a $10 million offer, covering the cost of a third‑party scrubbing service. An alternative bid of $7.5 million from Mercor Corporation was withdrawn after Google secured the purchase. The court is scheduled to consider the objection in September, and the union has requested that any approved sale include prohibitions on profiling or re‑associating the data with individual flight attendants.