00:00 Hello, I'm Seth For Privacy and welcome to season two, episode two of Opt Out. Opt Out's a show where I sit down with passionate people to learn why privacy matters to them, the tools and techniques they've found and leveraged, and where we encourage and inspire others towards personal privacy and data sovereignty. In season two, we're taking a look at some of the privacy-preserving tools, FOSS projects, and privacy-oriented companies in the space to get a better understanding of what they do well, what their limitations are, and what we all can do to help drive their tools forward.

Have you been wondering how to take back control of the data that's been captured by data brokers before you started taking your privacy more seriously? This episode, we're going to sit down with Rob Schavel, co-founder of Delete.me, to chat about cleaning up the data about you that's been scooped up by these data brokers across the internet. Welcome on to Opt Out, Rob. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm very excited to chat about this. I've been a customer of Delete.me for a while and a very happy user ever since actually Techlore did a review of Delete.me and the service that I'll provide there and have just really enjoyed it.

So I was glad to be able to take the chance to have you on and chat about it. I think this area of finding a way to reclaim the data that's been scooped up by data brokers already about you is a really tricky one. And it's one of the, I think, the hardest and most time-consuming issues issues with taking your privacy seriously and one of the hardest things to actually do on your own. So a service like Delete.me is very valuable and I've been a huge fan so far.

But for those who aren't familiar with yourself or with what Delete.me does, do you mind just introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about Delete.me? Sure. Sure. So, first of all, pleased to be here on Episode 2, Season 2, or Season 2, Episode 2 in 2022. That seems auspicious to me. But a little bit about myself and what we do. Happy to oblige and get into any topic that you and the listeners feel is interesting. Myself, I'm just a humble entrepreneur trying to tackle problems that maybe the world hasn't noticed early enough.

I mean, that's the definition of pretty much any entrepreneur. And a little bit about myself. I was in market research when I first started my career and I was looking at industries and trends and things like that. And I think it made me a bit of a contrarian, especially when I went to Silicon Valley and was a junior person in a venture capital firm doing a lot of investments. And, you know, in both areas, I noticed that the tech world in particular would run around and chase whatever was really, really popular.

And, you know, it turns out your data has become really, really popular. And what I noticed was you pretty much want to be doing things that are a little bit different than what everybody is thinking is popular at the time. And so when my co-founders and I were brainstorming about what was happening on the Internet over 10 years ago now, they, you know, they were talking about, for lack of a better word, privacy. But this idea that all of the data that, you know, is tied to our identities is going out and being shared and being stored in the cloud, so to speak, and everything else.

And, you know, we got more and more excited about, hey, you know, there isn't really a good set of tools for people to use to control their data, protect it, and keep it private. And we set out to kind of create some of those tools. And DeleteMe, I think, has become one of the, you know, more popular tools in an array of software, FOSS and otherwise, that I think you cover or you will cover, that help people regain some semblance of control over this data that is increasingly out there about them.

Yeah, yeah, thanks for diving into that a bit. And it seems like you were very, I think, forward thinking and thinking deeply about how to help people take back their privacy a decade ago. So, I mean, that was right around Snowden Revelations. And I think when a lot of the broader push towards privacy started kicking off, but I think very ahead of the game with looking at what data brokers are doing and seeing an opportunity to not only build a business, but also just provide an essential tool for people to be able to take back control of that data.

And it is definitely like, it's kind of like a crossover of things because it is privacy because it is related to you being able to decide who gets to see that personal info. But it's also really a lot of just kind of control of your data and data sovereignty in an age where we continually get less and less of that. The more services we opt into and the more apps we install and the more devices that we start using. It's definitely one that quickly gets out of hand.

So, to believe me, it seems like a very forward thinking tool a decade ago and an essential tool today. So, I definitely am grateful that it exists. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that you commented on is something that I tend to talk about a lot, which is the difference between, at least in my mind, privacy and anonymity. And, you know, I think with good tools and some everyday, not too hard to do practices, the average person can get, you know, a decent amount of privacy, even in the digital age where most, you know, of our working life is engaged on the internet, you know, in some way, shape or form.

Yeah. Yeah. But I think there's a portion of people out there that are still confused between, hey, can I wipe myself clean from the internet? Can I become completely anonymous? And, you know, unfortunately, or what have you, the answer is, is, is, is, is very hard to kind of get that level, you become invisible, so to speak. And, you know, frankly, it always has been, whether, you know, even before the internet existed. So, I think it's important just to level set as we talk about, you know, these kinds of things and the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be.

And just understand that, you know, in some ways, the security industry often says security is economics. You know, if you want to exploit some network, you have unlimited money, you can usually do it. And I think in some ways, privacy is economic as well, in the sense that if you, you know, if you care enough about finding somebody or something on the internet, and there's any kind of trail so ever that you've left, and you have unlimited resources to go find it, you usually can.

So, it's important to know that it's very hard to be anonymous on the internet, but it's getting increasingly easy to have a good, good amount of privacy on the internet. So, there's sort of good and bad news for, depending on how you look at the picture. Yeah, and I think it's, I think it's very important to make that distinction. And for most people, they don't necessarily need anonymity. It definitely has a lot of, a lot of use, and it's something that everyone should have access to.

But many people don't need anonymity. And when you're using a lot of different services, anonymity doesn't really matter. Like, for instance, the people who are accessing their bank account over Tor, they're not getting any anonymity because the bank knows it's them logged into their account. And they have all the personal info on them. And so, there's a very clear distinction there, but there is a lot of confusion. But, yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head that privacy is a very approachable thing today and constantly improving for those that want their privacy.

And I really think everyone needs and deserves privacy today. And everyone deserves access to anonymity, but not everybody needs that. But, yeah, anonymity is a, it's a much, much harder topic to nail. If you want to remain perfectly honest on the internet, that's, it's almost impossible. And it requires very advanced technical skills. But privacy is something that is definitely improving day by day. And I'd love to hear more about just kind of like, what was it that woke you up to the need for personal privacy?

Was it just kind of seeing that, that entrepreneur opportunity and going against the crowd a decade ago? Or was there something that, that really kind of woke you up specifically to the need for your own personal privacy? You know, a lot of people have a very deep personal story to share. I don't. It was more what I was thinking.

10:00 referring to in in you know earlier which is yeah you know it seemed like privacy was the craziest thing uh 10 years ago face we started the business and facebook hadn't even allowed all the users to sign up you know it was still some colleges and they hadn't gone ipo yet uh and but yet there was this there's this thesis out there in the tech world that like everybody needed to share all their information all the time with all the social networks and that was the way that the future was was going to come and mark zuckerberg was hailed as you know some brilliant thinker that was going to tie community together and and the world together into a giant you know social network where everybody was happy and you know rainbows and unicorns were prancing around and you know it was obviously bs right but people didn't stop to think and so as as we thought about it more we got more and more excited about this idea that hey there's going to be a return to normalcy humans as in groups have always been very attuned to sharing certain information with certain people and certain

information with other people it's just part of our uh of the of the you know the sociology that's you know developed in in human groups over tens of thousands of years and like just because the internet exists and you can share some some um some stuff online in a social group doesn't mean that it all goes away and you know privacy is very important to freedom control of information is very important to personal freedom those are some core tenets that got me excited about the business and i think for any entrepreneur out there you know listening to this this or not you know when you start a business or an endeavor if you truly have conviction that something is going to be true or more true for five or ten years uh into the future uh you can it's a big advantage and i think jeff bezos talks about that this specifically but it's a big advantage because you can invest your own time money and effort into something um where other people might give up or or what have you because you you truly believe or have

real knowledge that in the future this issue that you're working on is going to become more and more important and indeed that's that's sort of what's happened uh with the history of our company which where delete me is now a service that's 10 years old and in many cases the way we look at it internally as a team and though we're growing really fast and customers seem to be happy and we're adding them you know more and more at a higher frequency we still believe that we're in the very beginnings of uh you know a very very very large business yeah yeah i think there is there's a ton of opportunity for entrepreneurs and and for developers and and people who do see that vision for the need for privacy and who see that there's an opportunity where people are really waking up and starting to take things seriously i think there's a huge huge place there for businesses to spring up and and a lot of money to be made hopefully by people who are very much focused on the the good of the the end user hopefully the opposite of what we've seen

with with social media and these tools like you talked about from silicon valley that that really have just kind of pushed the envelope as much as possible in data collection hopefully we're going to have people stepping into the privacy space i think like yourself who really do care about the end user and want to provide a service that is is ultimately for their good and not just to make money um but i think there definitely is is a lot of opportunity there so obviously you were super early in that space but i think we're still quite early i think we're still very early honestly and just seeing how many people are going to start to wake up and realize how important personal privacy is and how much they've been sacrificing of their data over the years using all these different services yeah and i think you know one of the uh important points and we can talk about this or not that you bring up is sort of money right and and you cover foss a lot and you know see um the software development um paradigm as it relates to privacy from a bunch of

different perspectives but you know one of the perspectives i have as a you know now older guy in the tech world and um um somebody who you know enjoys philanthropy and open source software and all kinds of things is that i do think there has i personally believe as an entrepreneur there has to be a marketplace um and there has to be money at stake uh for there to be effective change in in many cases that's a debatable um you know position but you know i really i really am hopeful to that more money and more entrepreneurs and more teams um that can afford to go after after the opportunity to build privacy tools and solutions are um you know are making it and and the reason they're making it is because the the people out there are supporting them uh they're supporting them by signing up to these services and and you know you can't it's very i'm not i'm not i'm not going to go as far as saying you can't i'm going to say it's very hard to fight this fight and and to build tools and and services that work and and and you know have the quality that

that the typical person expects um them to have unless you can create a real marketplace and some of that you know there's a there's a big chunk of that that i that i believe needs to be sort of capitalistic and for profit yeah no i definitely i think i would agree um i think there is a ton of good that can be done by just altruistic people willing to sacrifice personal time to to pour into projects and i think that's that has been the driver for especially the the fa space um but i think there's also kind of a disconnect where people view it as i want to be able to use these tools i don't want to have to pay any money for them but i want them to be perfect and do everything i want and they're they're not connecting the dots between if i'm not paying with my data and with my personal information which is kind of the the subscription model that a lot of social media platforms have done especially um where you're paying with your data you're paying with information about what you do about who you are

they're able to use that for themselves and they're able to use that to to market to you and they're able to sell that data off but when we're kind of switching the paradigm into tools that care about user privacy that they care about user data um i i hope that more and more people will continue to be willing to to pay for either directly via subscription to a service or paying for the app or paying for the tool or indirectly via donating and and funding that the people who are building these tools because i mean i would love to not have to have money behind the scenes to to make these things happen but to make really a i think to make a massive change you're going to need people who are incentivized by money and who are able to drop other things and focus on these massively important tools because there's enough money in it to at least feed them and and keep keep it on the table keep a roof over their heads and and make it viable for them to focus on these tools so i definitely do see that that need and i think that

especially especially for tools that can more push for mass adoption tools like like signal and things that are are more approachable for the average person those tools usually come out of some sort of of business or some sort of marketplace where there's a clear way that there can be lasting and ongoing funding there and funding is a very difficult topic in the in the fall space and has been a struggle for a lot of different projects but it's it's definitely one where i hope that more and more people will realize i'm not having to pay with my data i'm not having to sacrifice my privacy to use this tool i'm gaining a lot of of good through this tool and i want to pay for that in some way and fund that work in some way it's really something that i'm trying to drive home here and that i'm hoping more and more people will will realize as they start to take a look at these tools and switch to using some of them yeah i mean it's a it's a great topic and i'm not sure there's uh you know there's conclusive evidence um you know or

even a clear one side versus the other but but there definitely needs to be um you know economic support for um for a model that goes beyond the model that we have today and you know it's interesting because when people sign up for delete me a lot of times we get questions from them saying hey where do these data brokers actually get my data they have so much data on me how do they get this they know my family members and their ages and it's scary and they have a photo of my house and they in some cases they know the model of my car and my last jobs and past and like where in the world do they get this data and you know unfortunately you know we have to try to educate them and say geez it's it's like everywhere it's like every app you've used every website you sign up to that's free as we were just talking about you know is is potentially in in competition without your knowledge to sell parts of of that database and you know they get acquired things get resold things get sold

20:00 after they're sold. I mean, it's a crazy marketplace that nobody sees but the practitioners, right? And then when people look at this data that the data brokers have that DeleteMe cleans up, they're scratching their head and go, wow, that's more detailed and accurate than I even knew was out there. I wouldn't even put this information in my LinkedIn. And these guys I've never heard of have it. And then these other guys have it. So thank you. And it all comes down to the fact that a lot of the monetization is just deeply flawed in all of these free and low-cost services that everybody's using. Yeah. And I love that you mentioned that most people don't even realize that that's the system they're using. Most people just think, I get to use this tool for free. That's awesome. And they don't realize the ways that they're paying for those tools. So I'm glad that y'all do some education there. And it's definitely something that I'm hoping more and more people step up and just continue to make people aware of the paradigm that they're currently a part of,

whether they know it or not. Yeah. I mean, you know, I actually, I sort of disagree. I think that the average person knows it, but they don't, but there's different definitions of the word knows it. You know, it's like, I think everybody at this point in America, at least kind of gets it. You know, if they go to Facebook or if they're on, they go to some, download some app and put their information in, they kind of know that like everybody's after their data and they're, they're doing stuff to it. And it's probably not cool stuff. They're probably not taking, you know, good care of it.

Everybody's had data breach notices. Everybody's, you know, everybody's sort of savvier than they were five or 10 years ago, I'd say. But what they don't know, and this is where the education that we do or try to do comes in, they have no inkling of like, to the extent that this stuff is being immediately brokered and sold behind their back and combined with tons of other data about them. Because, you know, the primary keys for us, you know, folks that have looked at databases before, the things about us that are easy to identify us, our email address, our full name combined with other information, you know, our IP address of our most used endpoint, our mobile phone ID. These are the kinds of things that they use to correlate massive amounts of data about us that come from different places, different apps that we've signed up for different, you know, things that we've done over time. And the data brokers have gotten very, very astute, and their technical platforms have gotten very good at

aggregating this, and making sure that, you know, they have a detailed, detailed and accurate profile by you. So that's, that's kind of like, there's knowing that, you know, there's knowing that we want to sign up for something for free that we want that like, you know, it's probably not like the world's best idea, but then there's, then there's a deeper level of understanding that comes with seeing what, what data is out there about you that you've never permitted to be out there about you. And then there's a whole deeper level of understanding that I try to talk about with media and journalists, which is like, what's happening post all that, which is algorithmic discrimination, AI use of your data for making decisions that you never even are part of, and all this sort of stuff that sounds futuristic to people, but it is actually happening. And it's increasingly scary.

Yeah, I think that is a great distinction that the people kind of realize they're getting into some shady deal with the devil, but, but don't really understand what the real world implications of, of that are, and what the depth is that they're kind of getting involved in with doing those things. And the companies are very, are very much either intentional, or at least ignorant of, of not fully explaining to users what they're, what they're going to be doing with that data, what they're collecting, and how they're using it. So definitely education there.

It's much worse than intentionally not explaining it. Yeah, they're, they're, they're, they're just, I mean, don't get me started, but, but, but let's not let them off the hook. I mean, they do everything in their power. And this isn't just data brokers. This is the applications that everybody uses. Um, it's services from companies that you quote unquote trust. I mean, the lawyers, everybody that's writing their terms of service, every pattern in the user interface, they're doing everything they can to get as much of your data and convince you that nothing's wrong with giving it.

Um, so I, I, I take a kind of a hard stance, uh, to say, none of this is ignorance and none of it is naivete is, it is all, uh, extremely calculated and industry, uh, today still believes that no matter what privacy laws are passed and no matter what, you know, um, you know, users learn, they're not going to make it, they're not going to do anything about it. That's what industry believes today. I, I still think that's why we're in the very early stages of this market.

Yeah. Yeah. They definitely, they still see that the financial incentive is there for them to keep doing what they're doing and not enough people have, have woken up and chosen to, to opt out of that, that system. Um, but the more do hopefully it'll, it'll cause a little bit of a cascade of change in the industry to, to push people to realize that maybe there's not actually enough financial good in that, that path forward to, to continue to be the normal paradigm.

But we'll definitely see where I end up there. Um, let's take a quick break from this episode to chat about the sponsors of opt out Cake Wallet and LocalMonero Cake Wallet is a key tool that I use daily as it allows me to easily and quickly use Monero for private by default payments. It's available in both iOS and Android. It is a fantastic way to get started buying and using Monero with a simple and easy to understand user experience. I regularly onboard new users to Cake Wallet and hope that it will help simplify and ease your journey into cryptocurrency.

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But I'd love to hear a little bit more about how DeleteMe can help with that. And specifically, like maybe what the core thing or things that you would hope users get out of using DeleteMe when they're in that situation. Yeah, I mean, it's not too complicated. You know, you sign up for DeleteMe as a subscriber and it's a service, so there's not that much you have to do other than sign up and, you know, identify the information about you and that you want us to search for out there on the web and at different data brokers that might be selling it or listing it on Google, etc.

And then we go systematically opt you out of each one of those that we find. And then we show you in a very, very clear report that is actually delivered to your email inbox in a PDF exactly what information, what kinds of where your cell phone number was found versus your, you know, third, last address that you were resident at versus where your mother's maiden name showed up and everything else. We show you exactly what we found and exactly where we removed it.

And you get a report every three months, so four reports a year, because this information gets repopulated. You know, 30 to 40 percent of the PII that we found that we find at data brokers ends up, you know, in a given annual period coming back because we continue to use services that continue to buy and sell your data behind your back. And, you know, it's just sort of unfortunately a situation today, at least in the U.S., where we need a subscription service because somebody has to be on your side cleaning, cleaning this data up relentlessly and checking back to make sure it's gone.

And very few people have the time for that. Now, if you if you have to do if you do have the time for that, we publish right on our homepage of our website, a DIY guide, and we keep it updated that shows you every data broker that we cover and every step by step process so that you can remove this information yourself. And that's free. So in a way, in a way we are. I'm going to I'm going to.

30:00 go as far as saying we do do a little bit of FOSS stuff in the sense that we are transparent and we invest in making the information that undergirds our service free for users. And really, the DeleteMe customers and subscribers that we call members, they're just using us because we do it efficiently at a reasonable price for many people. Yeah, and that's such a key point that you can do the majority of this or all of this yourself, but it is a massive time investment.

And that's where, again, I hope that people will just kind of weigh the costs and try to figure out, is this worth paying money to someone who cares about my ultimate good and wants to help with this difficult and time-consuming task? Is it worth paying money for them to do that, or can I do that on my own? And it is great to hear that y'all do publish that DIY approach so people can just step in and do it themselves. And like you said, if they have time.

And by the way, we're not saying that everybody should sign up and be customers of DeleteMe. You can absolutely do this stuff yourself. And it's not even an unattainable goal. It might take somebody that's kind of savvy with this stuff. I mean, I don't know. We have different estimates for it. But maybe 10 to 20 hours of work every three to four months to just make sure you get to all these sites and go through all their processes. And then make sure that they've cleaned up what you asked them to clean up and opted out what you asked them to opt out.

So for some people, that's great. And they get a visceral sense of being their own advocate. And our DIY guys get a lot of traffic. So there must be a lot of people doing it themselves. Yeah, and I think that the DIY approach also fits those more advanced threat models where you maybe don't either choose not to trust DeleteMe with the personal data. Because obviously, people who want to use DeleteMe need to give you guys personal info that allows you to go through and clean up things that are related to that personal info.

So that is something people need to be aware of. Like, you can't just magically clean up all my information from the internet without knowing anything about me. Like, that is a key piece of using DeleteMe, which obviously there is trust involved there. So having that DIY approach and y'all keeping it up to date, I think, really shows a good commitment to allowing users to do that themselves, whether they have the time or they just don't want to trust DeleteMe with their personal data.

It's very, very important. And I love that that's a very conscious and concerted effort on your part to make that available and allow people to do that. It's a great, great tool. Yeah. And like you said, you know, trust is in some ways, you know, the business that we're in, right? We've been doing this for 10 years. And yeah, I mean, I don't think we can do that. I don't think we can do what we do unless, you know, you fill out the data that you want us to go find and remove.

And unfortunately, that means that there's a level of trust that our customers choose to put in us. And I would never say that we're immune to data breaches. I mean, a data breach can happen to any company at any time these days. And so, you know, there's that threat factor. And then there's the trust factor of, well, hey, is DeleteMe selling this data somehow and trying to monetize it behind people's backs? And to that, I would say that's conspiracy theory bunk.

We've been in business for a decade and our entire business is based on one single revenue stream, which is protecting people's privacy, organizations and individuals and families. And so, if we did a single, if we took a single step in the direction to harm that trust, we'd literally be throwing an atom bomb into our business model, which is why we set it up this way. But like, you know, if you think through it logically, if you're distrustful of us, of DeleteMe because we might be selling your data, I think it's a little crazy.

If you just don't want to give your data to any service because there's a risk of that service being hacked or, you know, whatever. Well, that's a different consideration. Yeah. Do you have any kind of comments on anything about the approach you'll take to securing that data or any kind of commitment they all have made to focusing on cybersecurity within? You know, I think it's largely table stakes. You know, I wouldn't say we're any better than, you know, the average SaaS business out there.

I mean, you know, we invest a lot of time and effort in it and this, that and the other thing. And, you know, we do all the things you're supposed to do, all the patches and the, you know, pen detection and the sock compliance stuff and everything else. But, like, really, you know, I put that all in a box and I say you can do all the right things, but you never know. You know, you just never know. So I would never claim that we're somehow better or anything else in the security department.

I think the lesson of the last decade, in addition to, you know, privacy matters, is that security is hard. Yes. Yeah. As someone who has worked in cybersecurity for years, that is one of the hardest things to do out there. And it's like privacy. It's a constantly shifting arms race. There is no, like, we are secure today. It doesn't just happen like that. You may be secure today, but things are constantly going to be shifting. So it's definitely a very involved and very difficult process and one that multi-trillion dollar companies struggle with and one that small businesses struggle with.

So definitely, definitely tricky. But glad that you're focusing on that. And obviously you're aware of the risks there with the personal data that you're taking on. I'd also love to hear if there are any kind of limitations around DeleteMe service that people should be aware of when they're thinking about signing up and starting to use the service. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of limitations. You know, nothing's perfect and we're evolving like any, you know, any business.

You know, I think among them are the fact that we can only remove data from places that are, you know, reasonable about removing data. You know, we can't snap our fingers and, you know, immediately go on to a third party servers and remove data unilaterally. They have to have some legal or, you know, a framework for allowing a person to request, to make a request, you know, to remove data in some way, shape or form. Now, the good news is citizens all over the world are getting more and more rights to go make requests to any third parties that have their data.

And they're in those third parties, organizations, you know, of all shapes and sizes are starting to pay attention to these new laws because they have some, you know, they're scared, you know, in some way, shape or form of the ramifications of not doing so. But that said, you know, there are things protected by the First Amendment. There's things that users have signed up for that, you know, are impossible to, you know, more or less impossible to remove from unless you get a court order, which, by the way, we educate some of our users on and can help them, our customers, and can help point them in the right direction on these kinds of things.

If there's a real critical need, which some of our customers have. But one of the limitations is you just can't, you know, find something on the Internet that has your name on it and immediately assume you can, you know, be removed from it. So that's sort of like the broadest limitation. But I think the good news there is it's, like I said, people are getting more and more rights, both in the U.S., state by state, and across the world, the EU, Brazil, India, you name it.

And then another one of the limitations, I think, is the fact that we are, you know, in terms of the rest of the world, we are just now slowly moving to become a global service. So we started out in the U.S. We started with just data and a broad service. So we started in the U.S. We started with just data brokers, which is sort of a static list of companies that are the biggest culprits in selling your data and listing it on Google and profiles for sale to anyone that wants to buy it or search for it.

And we're broadening the service to include lots and lots and lots more places that have your data that give you options to control it,

40:00 you know, or opt out of the sale of your data or, you know, delete it or what have you. And we're also moving, you know, beyond the U.S. to cover the entire globe. And so there are limitations like that in the service as well. So I think the bad news is if you sign up for DeleteMe or you're considering signing up, you can't get everything that you might want. The good news is we're expanding the service on all these vectors and trajectories. And we're doing so in a way where our customers are getting the benefits of that expansion without having to pay more.

It's all one simple, single price. Yeah, I mean, it's good for people to realize that obviously you're not hacking into servers and removing data forcefully. Like you are having to go through the normal legal means through the opt out forms, through the settings and working with these companies and businesses to get that data removed. So obviously, actually, I should, that's a good point that I should go back and sort of redact some of my statement about the trust factor, which is there is there is there is sort of this suspicion that some people have that we're working with these data brokers.

Right. And we're somehow, you know, accomplices with them in business and, you know, and so on. And I think there's, you know, first of all, I'm here to tell you as, you know, one of the co-founders of the company and then the CEO. And then, you know, I think there's a lot of people that are, you know, I think there's a lot of people that are, you know, and I think there's a lot of people that are, you know, and I think there's a lot of people that are, you know, and I think there's a lot of people that are, you know, and I think there's a lot of people that are, you know, some of the stuff that's happening with their data, they might hold that suspicion that, hey, you know, DeleteMe might be working with these bad guys and, you know, how do I know they're not and blah, blah, blah.

And I think that's, you know, there's only so much I can do other than tell you that we've never done it. We've been in business for 10 years and we'll never, we never will do it. But I understand where that suspicion comes from and what you just said reminded me of that. Yeah, it's one of those areas where just the verifiability of the claims that you're making and the data that you're providing to users is tricky. I mean, it's just, it's very difficult, but that is something, I mean, I would assume a way that users could gain some verifiability would be to take the DIY guides as a paid subscriber and look through some of these data brokers and services and see if that data that you've claimed to remove has been removed.

Would that be a viable approach that people could take to kind of verify some of the claims that you're making as you're removing their data from these different services? Oh yeah, yeah. No, no. People do that all the time. No, no, no. That, that, the verifiability of what we're doing is very, it's quite easy for a customer to, to do. And in fact, most people have verified that through a Google search or two that their profiles are out there before they sign up.

So they can, and then they go and do their homework after. And then one of the reasons why we have like a 4.8 or 4.9 out of five, you know, review score or satisfaction score is because people do that. And they don't trust us. They verify. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And I love that you make it easy for people to be able to do that through the DIY guides. Like that's a very useful feature for even those people who are paying because it gives them an easy way to be able to go through and validate that and see the different data brokers that are being used and see the ways that they can check that out.

So that's definitely something I recommend for listeners who do explore DeleteMe and end up signing up. Go ahead and verify at least a few different sources to make sure that the things are lining up because I don't want to recommend a service to you like DeleteMe that that isn't legitimate. And obviously I use them and I validated that what they're doing worked for me. But that's definitely something where you should take some time. Yeah. You don't need to necessarily go through the 20 hours of looking through every data broker, but do some verification just so you're not blindly trusting a service like DeleteMe.

Because even if you all are great and have great reviews and have great reviews from kind of trusted people in the privacy space, it's still something where people should be verifying when there is the possibility to verify. So I hope that people will definitely do that. Don't trust anybody 100%. I mean, I'm the biggest skeptic out there. But, you know, you can also just use Google, you know, as a shortcut. Unfortunately, Google takes a lot of money from these data brokers and the SEO tremendously high, which is one of the core problems here, which is more and more your data is exposed on Google from a very, very easy search for your name and city or your cell phone number or relative.

And the amount of data that people can buy. First of all, they can see you often from a simple search. And then the sale is, oh, buy this full profile for as little as 99 cents. And if somebody's, you know, if somebody's, you know, who knows who's buying your data and why, right? And, you know, it's a crazy world out there. And, you know, it is absolutely unfortunate in some ways. You know, there has to be a paid service like DeleteMe. Like, I just fundamentally believe it shouldn't be that way.

But there is such a thing as public records information. And you do sign terms of service when you use all these websites. And here we are. Yeah. Yeah. It's a crazy situation that we need a tool like DeleteMe. Like, it would be a much better world where it wasn't a service that could exist and it wasn't a business that could exist. But it is an unfortunate reality and it's a very, very well thought out and well run service. I'm definitely grateful that it's something that people can choose to use if it fits their threat model.

And if they obviously agree with the approach taken and end up trusting DeleteMe with enough of their data to go ahead and start cleaning that up. And also, this question I'm going to ask everybody, and I know it can be a little weird to talk about competitors or alternatives, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on other tools that are out there that maybe are competitors or alternatives to DeleteMe. And then maybe why DeleteMe is a better service or better tool or what people should know about those comparisons.

Yeah. I mean, I think there's more tools out there now that are competitors that are very new because there's more entrepreneurs going after the privacy opportunity than there ever have been. So I think that's good news. Is there some choice out there? You know, one of them was for a long time. It was just us and Reputation Defender, Reputation.com or ReputationDefender.com. I can't remember. And then more and more and more websites have cropped up to do this kind of thing.

I can't remember some of the names of the newest ones. There's one I think called Privacy Bee and there's some other ones. You know, one of the more, I think, and I, you know, frankly, we encourage, you know, competition. I think there needs, I'd like to see a lot more privacy entrepreneurs out there trying to push the envelope and provide better services to people. One of them that I think is interesting that just came into my email box today, again, is a company called Mine, which you add to your, you know, you add their tools to your email inbox.

And then they scan your email and send out privacy requests to the third parties that have emailed you that you select. I mean, it's a different kind of approach. It's more of a GDPR request approach that starts with your email rather than starts with what data brokers are exposing information that's ranked on Google and easily available and exposed on the web. But it's an interesting one because if you trust them to access your email inbox and to parse it, then you can start to sort of have them make the request to opt you out of lists, you know, email lists and other, you know, and other kinds of data relationships.

That's another one that comes to mind. Yeah, it's really interesting approach to kind of more passively clean up data as you learn about those issues. And like that's, I guess that's kind of analogous to you slowly going through your subscriptions and unsubscribing from all the bogus lists that you've been put on or put yourself on over the years. But it's a very, very interesting approach to doing that.

50:00 Obviously, I guess that would miss any services that you're not getting emails from. So there would definitely be some gaps, but definitely a fascinating one. We'll have to look into that and see what they're offering. And I mean, the biggest piece for me in this space is you need to trust the tool that you're going with or you need to do it yourself. Like there is no workaround. So I would definitely be wary of people jumping on any new service right away because obviously you're having to give over a lot of information to services, at least like DeleteMe.

I mean, the one scanning your email inbox, that's a lot of info too, because you're giving them access to every email that you're getting. So it's definitely a situation where people should be very wary and cautious and do their due diligence and do their research to make sure that they trust the service they want to go with enough with the data that they need to provide in order to get that done. Or just like we've talked about, do it themselves.

And thankfully, obviously, you all have some great guides. I'm sure there's some other content out there, but it's definitely a situation where you either trust or you do it yourself. There's no other real option there. So people need to keep that in mind. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I mean, we trust a lot. And, you know, I think it's going to become more and more important. And one of the things that we haven't talked about, but I know has been covered in your prior episodes is sort of the growth of crypto and blockchain as a form of trust that's, you know, that's sort of new.

And I do think there's some promise in that group of technologies to do things better as an industry than we've been doing them. It certainly is not the answer to everything. But it is interesting. And I encourage people that, you know, want to take more of their data into their own hands and their identity into their own hands to explore some of the options with, you know, with crypto and wallets and so on and check out that world. It's very, it's very nascent, but it is based on fundamental principles that allow you to control your data more than today's web.

Yeah, yeah, very much so. I think there's so far the main use case for blockchain has been cryptocurrency. And I specifically advocate for usage of cryptocurrencies that are privacy preserving, like Monero. But there are definitely some interesting use cases of using a blockchain for the transparency and auditability that we lack with centralized companies and with people that we're trusting with their data. And there's an interesting service that I've been looking at who are kind of building out a Twitter-like alternative.

And they're going to have a blockchain for the moderation and kind of network transparency and auditability to help provide a way for users to get better visibility into how things are being run. So definitely some interesting stuff being done there. And I'm curious to see what will happen there. But obviously the big win with blockchains has been cryptocurrencies and specifically ones that can help you to gain financial sovereignty and financial privacy through using those things and not having to trust some third party or payment process or anything like that.

Well, last question I had for you, Rob, was just how can listeners dive in and help support what you're doing with DeleteMe? Yeah, you know, any feedback is appreciated. You know, we listen and learn from everybody, whether you're stopping by the website and asking a question or you're using one of the DIY guides, you're responding to one of our blog posts about one of these issues. So no need to become a paid member. But, you know, but if you do, you know, choose to, you know, we'd really appreciate it.

We'd really appreciate the feedback. You know, we invest quite a bit in our customer support and services team to make sure that we listen very carefully to our members and customers. You can make customer requests of our privacy advisors if there's things out there that you find that you might want an opt out or removal around. So these are ways that, you know, you can be directly helpful. And beyond that, you know, we continue, you know, we were big supporters of the CPRA, which is the follow up bill in California, a privacy bill to the CCPA.

And, you know, we continue to try to mobilize our growing community to advocate in their states pro-privacy legislation and rights that will eventually help their deleting service become better. So all of those things work in a virtuous kind of circle. So, you know, those are a few closing thoughts from our... Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time out to come on to the show and just really kind of give us some insight into your background, the background of Delete.me and just really into the space that is data brokers and how Delete.me can really step in and be a service that can help users.

And I just want to say again, thank you for just your commitment to allowing people to do it themselves as well and not really kind of pigeonholing them into a service necessarily, but providing an excellent service, but also providing people the tools to make this change themselves at the same time. So I think that's a great thing. And I'm really glad you came on and kind of broke it down a bit for listeners here. Yeah. Thanks for having me. And I'd add one last thing, which is given your community, if there are false developers out there working on tools that should be interesting or should be integrated with the kind of stuff that we're doing or capabilities that you're messing around with on a part-time basis.

We'd love to hear from you. We really value the sort of creativity and open source ethos of people trying to figure out new ways to bring a great or wrap that into a service that's easy to use. So open invitation for any of folks like that to contact me or the company. So again, thanks for having me. For sure. I'll definitely, I'll put your guest profile in the show notes and links about DeleteMe so people can clearly kind of get involved, take a look at DeleteMe and reach out to you and to DeleteMe if they do have ideas or tips or tools that they're building out that would fit in there.

Well, thanks again, Rob. Have a great night. Thank you. Thanks for listening. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Opt Out. If you did, please take a moment and subscribe to the podcast. Or if you're already subscribed, share it with one friend or family member this week. As always, you can check out the link to the guest content and contact info, as well as links to all of the tools we discussed in today's episode. Now get out there and opt out this week.

We'll see you next time.