What we check before anyone licenses

Email and chat hold other people's words. Customer contracts and NDAs may say no. Staff messages have their own rules, and so do trade secrets and anything a lawyer wrote.

Rights come first, before any number. The rights check goes through who owns what. If a record is not yours to license, the check says so and shows no range.

Removing names does not always remove people. A made-up label like "Person 14" can still tie messages back to one human. In the Spirit Airlines sale, a flight attendants' union objected on this point. A court-appointed privacy ombudsman said the privacy steps were adequate (Bloomberg Law). We found no sale order.

We tell you early which records carry names and details. We send you to the privacy review before anything goes near a buyer. Nothing is shared with a buyer until you say yes.

Public deals vary a lot, and most records sit well below the two numbers here.

We show a range from public deals, with the source next to it. If your lamp comes back dim, we say so plainly.

A buyer wants a sample before paying. It asks who wrote the records, what they hold, and whether you can prove the rights. A messy archive makes a buyer slow.

The tools help you get ready first. A data map and a data room checklist turn the mess into a tidy drawer. Then the intro goes out.

More companies are listing their records. SimpleClosure says more than 350 companies have listed assets on its hub since April (its own count). A closing company has a deadline, and the buyer does not.

We tell you what the deal clock looks like for your case. If you are closing, we help you check your records before you delete them.