Techlore Talks The CEO Who Wants to Delete Your Digital Past
Jul 16, 2025
In this engaging discussion, Dan Saltman, founder and CEO of Redact.dev, shares his insights on the importance of managing one's digital footprint. He explains practical data-deletion techniques and why people are concerned about online privacy. Dan highlights the unique capabilities of Redact.dev as a locally hosted tool, distinguishing it from competitors. He delves into the complexities of data broker removals, the risks associated with privacy services, and his philosophy that 'perfect is the enemy of good' for achieving digital peace of mind.
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Skype Wake-Up Call
- Dan discovered every Skype message of his life was still in the cloud when he reopened the app after years.
- That shock motivated him to build a tool to mass-delete messages instead of manually clicking each one.
Local Browser Automation For Deletion
- Redact runs locally and automates deletion across 30+ services by acting like a browser front end.
- It lets users craft queries to delete or edit messages and keep a local archive of removed content.
Deletion Reduces Real-World Risk
- Deleting online content reduces your threat surface even if copies might exist elsewhere.
- Dan argues that making data inaccessible to 99.99% of actors materially improves safety.