I created a 6 million dollar business as a kid. (never saw a cent) Abine DeleteMe
For one reason or another, I’ve always cared about privacy. Maybe one day you’ll learn why — but for now, let’s just say I’ve always been careful online.
One of the things I hated was job search platforms. I’m looking at you, Taleo. as a jobseeker you create a profile and spend (actually hours!!) applying to a job but in the back-end if the platform doesn’t like you, your profile can be blacklisted for that position. And trust me I’ve been kicked from some job listings At the time i was just learning how the web works (computers are evil, using them is a sin now give me ten repentance for thinking such thoughts) and I hated the idea of a platform that can allow a single person to put invisible, irrerasable notes on your profile. And how recruiters would snoop your social media accounts, and disqualify you from getting a job because of something you said online.
“What if” I thought, you make a company whose job was to look for things online and remove them?
After all it wasn’t hard to run a whois on a domain (which at them time charged for privacy, meaning thousands of webmasters data was just there for the finding)
I wrote down the idea and excitedly showed it to my mechanic father. “That’s stupid” he said. “You’re wasting your time” “you should learn how to pull an engine, this computer stuff will never make you any money”
That week, his computer broke
DATA-REAL LIESSS he called.
yes dad?
Help fix my computer.
No dad. I replied, that’s stupid. I should learn how to pull an engine. you can call a computer shop. After all That computer stuff isn’t going to make any money.
He belted me for that. Worth.
but he’s made his point and sadly I took it.
So I took my “stupid idea” and decided to send it to someone else.
Abine Blur is a company that lets you mask emails.
How hard would it be for them to also delete data?
And so I emailed the contact form (crying as I typed) detailing how they could search for information on someone’s email, phone number and personals — charging for the benefit.
About a week later, I got an email that they were launching a new service.
Abine DeleteMe
Since 2012 — Over 20 Million Listings Removed
The Abine, Inc. annual revenue was $6 million in 2021.
Abine never replied to my email.
Never acknowledged that their data deletion side-arm company wouldn’t have existed
Didn’t even upgrade my account — I have the free version of services.
Abine was recently acquired by IronVest. I’ve never seen a cent since I sent that email years ago.
And worse? the information that I ever sent it is locked up in an old Gmail account
But the life lesson I’ve learned is that when someone says “that’s stupid” “that will never go anywhere” “you should do X instead”
just maybe.
that person’s an idiot.
