Radioshack sold off consumer information when they went bankrupt, even though that was against what customers agreed to. It wouldn't be a surprise of Google was able to do the same.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2901028/radioshack-puts-cust...
(I had a shower re-sealed by a company that gave a 5-year guarantee. Four years later it was leaking again, and I got in touch with them to have it redone under warranty. After stonewalling me for weeks, they finally came back with "we purchased this company off its original owner but didn't take on any of their obligations so you have to find the original owner and get them to repair your shower", and as far as I could tell that's actually a thing you can do.)
This is exactly the same thing, except it was the company name that was sold. Acme Corporation sold the Acme brand to RoadRunner Inc, then quietly ceased trading taking all their liabilities with them.
That would be like buying a company that owes money on a building and telling the bank that you won't be making payments because you are keeping the building, but not the debt.
That's why a big part of mergers and acquisitions is researching all the possible liabilities that may exist for the company to be acquired.
I'm cool with limiting liability, but completely shielding individuals illegal activity is inane in my opinion.
Bar takes over the remaining business, deletes your backups first, and then sends you a new contract?
It’s not that they have the data, it’s that they split it from the associated contract.
Bankruptcy has little to do with this. It could also happen when Foo stayed in business, or when Bar took over or merged with Foo, without it going bankrupt in-between.
The only difference is that, with bankruptcy, there may be a third party that’s guilty of splitting the data from its contract. If Foo is bankrupt, it doesn’t exist anymore, and Bar may buy the data separate from its contract in good faith.
and why bankruptcy? why not just change of status? company is sold, or goes public, or goes private, or just changes from llc to c corp, or CEO changes? there's far more things that can happen to a company besides bankruptcy which would cause me to want my relationship and data with the company to terminate.