Late Google rival vows to resolve objections

Last week, an AI training data lab, Micro1, put in a last-minute competing bid that it claims resolves all objections to the data sale. Outbidding Google by 25 percent, Micro1 offered $12.5 million in cash, while promising that if debtors pick Micro1 over Google, the bankruptcy proceedings can avoid any further delays.

However, Micro1’s plan notably includes de-identifying the data in-house, which Spirit debtors were opposed to in the auction process. Spirit even chose a lower second bid should the Google sale fall through because the de-identification was completed by independent third parties. It seems, then, that even if the late bid is considered, it’s less likely to tempt debtors. Additionally, Micro1’s claims to resolve all objections may be somewhat exaggerated. In Springshot’s case, Micro1 does not promise to segregate IP, trade secrets, or proprietary data. Instead, Micro1 only says that it will not use Springshot data to create a rival product or ever sell the data to a would-be rival.

Ars could not reach Micro1’s lawyers for comment, but the data lab said it plans to attend the upcoming hearing to entice debtors to take their offer.

Kreuzkamp told Ars that he appreciates that Micro1 acknowledges Springshot’s concerns, but his objective remains scrubbing Spirit’s dataset of any data that Springshot owns.

His company’s lawyers have been in contact with Spirit debtors’ legal team and plan to defend Springshot’s proprietary data at the upcoming hearing. They feel confident the court will take their concerns seriously. But there are no guarantees, as the bankruptcy court prepares to approve this unusual sale. Kreuzkamp said it remains unclear what process a bankrupt company like Spirit should be taking to “ensure that it extricates everything that is proprietary from a dataset.”

“I just think it’s a very complex issue when it comes to extricating the data that’s owned by somebody else,” Kreuzkamp said. However, now’s the time to do it, he suggested, since “once you throw data into an AI model, it’s impossible to trace what the model did with that.”