{"id":3463,"date":"2026-08-18T17:08:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanhomejournals.com\/?p=3463"},"modified":"2026-08-18T17:08:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:08:34","slug":"googles-bid-for-spirits-data-is-a-reminder-that-your-work-emails-arent-really-yours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanhomejournals.com\/?p=3463","title":{"rendered":"Google’s bid for Spirit’s data is a reminder that your work emails aren’t really yours"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Long after the goodbye cake is gone, you could still be valuable to your employer.<\/p>\n

Read more American Airlines is reversing its bet against seatback screens<\/a><\/p>\n

The digital trail that employees create at work has become a hot commodity for companies looking to build and train AI models \u2014 sometimes, as with Spirit Airlines, outlasting the businesses that accumulated it.<\/p>\n

Google won a bidding war, paying $10 million for Spirit’s internal data, according to a bankruptcy court filing dated August 14. The trove includes the airline’s internal documents, workflows, emails, some 500 million Teams messages, and its codebase. It excludes customer data and has been anonymized, Google said.<\/p>\n

Spirit stopped flying in May after going bankrupt. It employed about 9,700 full-time workers in 2025, according to its most recent annual report.<\/p>\n

For Google, the deal appears to be a bargain. For Spirit employees \u2014 and workers everywhere \u2014 it’s a reminder that work emails and other workplace communications ultimately aren’t yours.<\/p>\n

What’s changing is the value of that information, and what companies might do with it. The data generated through everyday work could, for example, be used to train AI assistants to handle customer complaints or help developers debug websites.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, AI training startup Micro1 announced a program offering 50 midsize companies between $100,000 and $2 million for access to anonymized data.<\/p>\n

Business Insider spoke with attorneys about what workers should know about the data they generate on the job and how to protect their privacy.<\/p>\n

Ask your company<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Most of the time, your digital handiwork \u2014 from the email to the boss you spent an hour perfecting to the droll Teams messages you sent to your work bestie \u2014 belongs to the company.<\/p>\n

Those records are becoming more valuable as demand for AI training data grows, said Jared Pope, an employment attorney and CEO of HR platform Work Shield, which manages workplace misconduct. Pope said he’s spoken with CEOs and company owners receiving calls from companies that want to buy their workplace data.<\/p>\n

“It could be extremely valuable to the bottom line of a company,” he said.<\/p>\n

That’s one reason it can be worth asking about data-retention policies when you start or leave, Pope said.<\/p>\n

Many companies are still figuring out their AI policies.<\/p>\n

George Socha, an attorney and senior vice president of brand awareness at AI e-discovery platform Reveal, said there is no single standard place where companies outline their policies around employee data and workplace surveillance.<\/p>\n

Read more Harvey\u2019s first LLM for legal work is here<\/a><\/p>\n

Companies “ought to be trying to establish appropriate, reasonable boundaries and then conveying them clearly to employees and making sure the employees understand them,” Socha said.<\/p>\n

Until businesses establish more rigid policies, though, it’s a bit of a free-for-all. Employers may discuss those policies during onboarding, when introducing employees to the tools available to them and explaining how to use them.<\/p>\n

Employees can also contact HR to ask where they can find the company’s policies on employee data and workplace monitoring, Socha said.<\/p>\n

Works chats are ‘not a diary’<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It’s generally up to companies to decide whether they want to sell de-identified data, said Pope.<\/p>\n

That possibility is a good reminder for workers to be mindful about what they put on their work devices.<\/p>\n

“Your work email and chat are actually not a diary,” he said. “Assume anything you create on a company system could outlive your own job there.”<\/p>\n

Sensitive information remains protected<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Most of the sensitive personal information your employer has about you \u2014 things like Social Security numbers and other information \u2014 is likely to be protected by various state laws, said Vanessa Matsis-McCready, VP of HR services and associate general counsel at HR company Engage PEO.<\/p>\n

That’s the case, even if your employer goes under. “Bankruptcy laws are not going to override that,” she said.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Matsis-McCready said, it’s worth maintaining a defensive posture when it comes to not using your work laptop, for example, for personal tasks. Another reason: the possibility of data leaks.<\/p>\n

For Pope, it’s another reason for employees to be smart about the digital trail they create on the job.<\/p>\n

Read more Uber COO is \u2018tempted to say\u2019 the company will have fewer employees in five years<\/a><\/p>\n

“Be careful with what you put out there, because it doesn’t go away,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google bid $10 million for Spirit’s internal documents, emails, workflows, Teams messages, and codebase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nGoogle's bid for Spirit's data is a reminder that your work emails aren't really yours - American home journals<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanhomejournals.com\/?p=3463\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Google's bid for Spirit's data is a reminder that your work emails aren't really yours - 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