New: who buys company data, October 2026 list
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Market facts

Market facts: deals, programs and demand for company data

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This page lists public facts about the market for company data used in AI, newest first: disclosed deals, provider programs, data sales by closing companies, regulatory challenges and the demand behind them. Each entry is one sentence with the date of the event, where there is one, and a numbered link to its source.

  • Reported events are attributed to the outlet that reported them (“Bloomberg Law reported…”) and marked “Reported.”
  • Provider figures, such as total payouts or published ranges, are presented as the provider’s own statements.
  • Every entry carries two dates: the date of the event (or “Undated” for a provider statement that carries no date), and the date it was last checked against its source.
  • An entry records one event or statement. It is not an average, and what one company was paid does not predict what another will be offered.

The list is updated monthly, and when a significant deal or program is reported. For who is buying now and on what terms, see the buyers hub.

What has happened, and when?

  1. On Oct. 1, 2026 the AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department urged House members to sign a letter led by Rep. Steven Horsford raising concerns about the proposed $10 million sale of Spirit employees' internal data to Google for AI training.[1] as of
  2. VentureBeat reported in an exclusive on Sept. 30, 2026 that Google was expanding its 'Content Offer Pilot', which pays developers and small businesses in roughly 100 countries for proprietary code repositories and other non-public content, without disclosing payment ranges.[2] Reported. as of
  3. As of late September 2026, Google's $10 million purchase of Spirit Airlines' data still required approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, after hearings were repeatedly postponed.[3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] Reported. as of
  4. Bloomberg reported on Sept. 17, 2026, citing people familiar, that teams in SpaceX's AI unit, SpaceXAI, had informally discussed buying customer and operational data from troubled or defunct startups to train its AI models.[9, 10] Reported. as of
  5. In its Spirit Airlines court filing, as Fortune reported on Sept. 14, 2026, micro1 said it had completed more than 50 data transactions in the preceding 45 days.[5] Reported. as of
  6. Fortune reported that consumer privacy ombudsman Lucy Thomson filed a report with the bankruptcy court on Sept. 8, 2026 disclosing that Google had offered to narrow the personal data included in the Spirit sale.[5, 11] Reported. as of
  7. Data-licensing marketplace Troveo says it has paid more than $20 million to over 7,000 rights holders licensing video, audio, gaming, robotics and, more recently, business data to AI buyers.[12] as of
  8. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA objected in bankruptcy court to the Spirit data sale, arguing de-identified records could be re-linked to employees, and the IAM and TWU Local 570 filed a joinder to that objection on Aug. 28, 2026.[13, 14] Reported. as of
  9. Bloomberg Law reported that Google was named the winning bidder, at $10 million, for de-identified business data from defunct Spirit Airlines in an August 2026 bankruptcy auction, with Mercor's $7.5 million offer named the backup bid; the sale still required bankruptcy-court approval.[15, 16, 17, 18] Reported. as of
  10. According to an Aug. 14, 2026 court notice reported by Bloomberg Law, the Spirit data package included about 100 million emails and 500 million Microsoft Teams chats and collaboration records, plus revenue, aircraft-operations, employee-productivity and audit records; passenger profiles and loyalty-program data were excluded.[15, 17, 16, 19] Reported. as of
  11. After the Aug. 14, 2026 auction, AI data company Micro1 submitted a late $12.5 million offer for Spirit Airlines' data, topping Google's $10 million winning bid, Inc. and Fortune reported.[20, 5, 21] Reported. as of
  12. 404 Media reported on June 2, 2026 that Google was emailing Play Store developers offering payment, under a non-exclusive license, for their apps' code, including archived prototypes, in a 'confidential content offer pilot.'[22] Reported. as of
  13. A federal court entered the Final Judgment resolving the United States' claims against RealPage on May 19, 2026. It limits model training to data aged at least 12 months and not from active leases, bars competitors' nonpublic data in runtime subject to limited exceptions, and expires seven years after entry.[23, 24, 25] as of
  14. Forbes reported in April 2026 that wind-down firm SimpleClosure had processed nearly 100 data deals for defunct companies in the prior year, typically paying $10,000 to $100,000 per company, and that rival Sunset buys at similar prices that depend on a company's size, age and 'data richness.'[26] Reported. as of
  15. SimpleClosure launched an 'Asset Hub' on April 16, 2026 to help shutting-down startups sell source code and, in beta, workspace data such as email, Slack, Notion and Google Drive content.[27] as of
  16. Forbes reported that defunct transcription company cielo24 sold its internal digital records for AI training for 'hundreds of thousands of dollars.'[26] Reported. as of
  17. Amazon News_Amazon announced BSA changes effective March 4, 2026, including restrictions on using Amazon materials or services for AI development and separate Mexico and US/Canada agreements. The announcement was published February 17, 2026.[28] as of
  18. Shopify API terms updated February 27, 2026 restrict AI training using API-derived or Merchant Data unless Shopify gives prior written consent or, for one store’s Merchant Data, that merchant consents; separate transfer limits allow service necessity or express Merchant/Shopify authorization.[29] as of
  19. Micro1, the AI data company that made a late bid for Spirit Airlines' data, raised a $35 million Series A at a $500 million valuation in September 2025, Fortune reported.[5] Reported. as of
  20. Epoch AI researchers projected in 2024 that, if trends continue, language models will fully utilize the stock of human-generated public text between 2026 and 2032.[30, 31] as of
  21. The Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp, reported in May 2024, citing people familiar with the deal, that News Corp's content deal with OpenAI could be worth more than $250 million over five years.[32, 33] Reported. as of
  22. Reuters reported in February 2024, citing sources, that Reddit's AI content-licensing deal with Google was worth about $60 million per year.[34, 35] Reported. as of
  23. UndatedHandshake says its AI employer data partnerships, which buy de-identified operational data from businesses for frontier AI labs, typically range from $100,000 to $4 million depending on the data.[36, 37] as of
  24. UndatedAdvisory firm Miro Advisory lists indicative potential licensing values of $100,000 to $1 million-plus for company operating datasets and $10,000 to $1 million-plus for codebases.[38] as of
  25. Undated49 U.S.C. 14908 sets a civil penalty of up to $2,000 for a carrier's or broker's unlawful disclosure of shipment information; FMCSA's inflation-adjusted maximum is $4,109 (49 CFR part 386, appendix B, (g)(17)).[39, 40] as of
  26. UndatedMicrosoft Document Inspector identifies workbook comments, document properties including authors, hidden rows and columns, and hidden worksheets.[41] as of
  27. UndatedGoogle Search Central says to change the Search Console Performance report date range to include 16 months; this is separate from Google Analytics retention.[42] as of
  28. UndatedGA4 standard event retention can be 2 or 14 months and Analytics 360 event retention can extend to 50 months, but Large and XL properties are limited to 2 months. Standard aggregated reports are not affected by the retention setting.[43] as of
  29. UndatedMicrosoft says CSV saves only the active sheet and saves displayed text and values. If cells display formulas rather than their values, the formulas become text; formatting and other worksheet content are lost.[44, 45] as of

Sources

  1. House Sign-on Letter: Spirit Airlines & Google Need Guardrails for Sensitive Employee Data Transfer, Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO. Published . Accessed .
  2. Exclusive: Google expands pilot program that pays developers and small businesses for proprietary, offline code (and other data) (VentureBeat), VentureBeat. Published . Accessed .
  3. Spirit Airlines sells last 27 aircraft for $668 million — but Google's $10M data deal and other assets still remain in bankruptcy wind-down, Moneywise. Published . Accessed .
  4. Court delays Google's acquisition of Spirit's business data, ch-aviation. Published . Accessed .
  5. Little-known AI startup Micro1 tries to trump Google's bid for bankrupt Spirit Airlines' data (Fortune), fortune.com. Published . Accessed .
  6. Springshot fights Google's Spirit Airlines data deal, The Next Web. Published . Accessed .
  7. EPIC Files Amicus Brief Challenging Spirit Airlines' Bankruptcy Sale of Employee Data to Google, EPIC. Published . Accessed .
  8. AI firms set sights on data from bankrupt companies, Anadolu Agency. Published . Accessed .
  9. SpaceX Discusses Buying Data for AI Models From Failed Startups, Bloomberg (Carmen Arroyo), via Bloomberg Law. Published . Accessed .
  10. SpaceX May Buy Data From Failed Startups for AI Models (video), Bloomberg. Published . Accessed .
  11. Lieberman Discusses Privacy Concerns Surrounding Spirit Airlines' Bankruptcy Data Sale (Law360 interview summary), Pryor Cashman. Published . Accessed .
  12. How to Sell Data to AI Companies (and What It's Worth in 2026), Troveo. Published . Accessed .
  13. 'Adding insult to injury': Union accuses Google of creepy data deal in Spirit Airlines transaction, Fortune (Joshua Hong). Published . Accessed .
  14. Joinder of the IAM and TWU Local 570 to the Limited Objection of the AFA to the Proposed Sale of Deidentified Data (Dkt. 1539), U.S. Bankruptcy Court, S.D.N.Y. (via CourtListener RECAP). Published . Accessed .
  15. Google Aims to Boost AI With Purchase of Spirit Airlines Data, Bloomberg Law (James Nani). Published . Accessed .
  16. Google buys Spirit Airlines emails, chats, documents out of bankruptcy, Axios (Nathan Bomey). Published . Accessed .
  17. AI Companies Desperate For Data Are Buying Up Dead Airlines' Emails And Scanning Old Books, Forbes (Rashi Shrivastava). Published . Accessed .
  18. AI training data statistics, Troveo. Published . Accessed .
  19. Google's $10 Million Bid for Spirit Airlines' Data Reveals AI's Next Frontier, TIME (Billy Perrigo). Published . Accessed .
  20. Google Wants Spirit Airlines' Data. A Startup Just Outbid Its $10 Million Offer, Inc.. Published . Accessed .
  21. AI Data Wars Begin As Google, Mercor And Micro1 Bid For Spirit's Data, Forbes (Sandy Carter, contributor). Published . Accessed .
  22. Google Is Quietly Buying Code From Play Store Developers to Train AI (404 Media), 404 Media. Published . Accessed .
  23. United States v. RealPage, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-710 (M.D.N.C.), Memorandum Opinion, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina (via govinfo). Published . Accessed .
  24. Competitive Impact Statement, United States v. RealPage, Inc., U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division. Published . Accessed .
  25. United States et al. v. RealPage, Inc., et al.; Response to Public Comments (FR Doc. 2026-09147), Federal Register. Published . Accessed .
  26. AI's New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails (Forbes), Forbes. Published . Accessed .
  27. SimpleClosure Launches Asset Hub to Unlock Value Startups Leave Behind, SimpleClosure (AssetHub). Published . Accessed .
  28. Amazon News_Amazon: BSA updates effective March 4, 2026, sellercentral.amazon.com. Accessed .
  29. Shopify API License and Terms of Use, shopify.com. Accessed .
  30. Will we run out of data? Limits of LLM scaling based on human-generated data, Epoch AI (Villalobos et al.). Published . Accessed .
  31. Will we run out of data? Limits of LLM scaling based on human-generated data (arXiv v2), arXiv. Published . Accessed .
  32. OpenAI, WSJ Owner News Corp Strike Content Deal Valued at Over $250 Million, The Wall Street Journal. Published . Accessed .
  33. OpenAI News Corp deal coverage, The Register. Published . Accessed .
  34. Exclusive: Reddit in AI content licensing deal with Google, sources say, Reuters (Anna Tong, Echo Wang, Martin Coulter). Published . Accessed .
  35. EXCLUSIVE-Reddit in AI content licensing deal with Google, sources say (Reuters syndication), Nasdaq / Reuters. Published . Accessed .
  36. Introducing Handshake AI Employer Data Partnerships (Handshake blog), Handshake. Accessed .
  37. Handshake AI program page, Handshake. Accessed .
  38. License Proprietary Business Data and Codebases, Miro Advisory. Accessed .
  39. 49 U.S. Code § 14908 – Unlawful disclosure of information, Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Accessed .
  40. Appendix B to Part 386 – Penalty Schedule; Violations and Monetary Penalties (eCFR, up to date as of 10/01/2026), eCFR. Accessed .
  41. Microsoft Document Inspector workbook inspection, support.microsoft.com. Accessed .
  42. Google Search Central: debugging traffic drops, developers.google.com. Accessed .
  43. Google Analytics data retention, support.google.com. Accessed .
  44. Microsoft Excel format features not transferred, support.microsoft.com. Accessed .
  45. Microsoft save workbook to text/CSV, support.microsoft.com. Accessed .

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