Who Owns DeleteMe?

Abine was founded in 2009 to 2010 in Boston by Shavell, Kuznetsov, and Sudbury around a straightforward observation: personal information was spreading across the internet faster than individuals could track it, and opting out of data broker sites was deliberately tedious.

DeleteMe launched in 2010 as a paid removal service. The process then and now: subscribers provide their details, agents and automated systems find matching profiles across people-search sites and data brokers, submit opt-out and deletion requests, and issue periodic reports showing what was removed. Human operators handle the brokers that resist automated requests.

The service grew alongside the privacy regulatory wave. As state privacy laws multiplied and high-profile doxxing incidents pushed data removal into mainstream awareness, DeleteMe became the default recommendation in security journalism. Wirecutter, PCMag, and Consumer Reports coverage consistently ranked it among the top removal services.

The product broadened from one-time removals to continuous monitoring, added coverage for family members, and expanded business plans protecting executives and employees. By the mid-2020s DeleteMe covered hundreds of broker sites and had become Abine's dominant revenue line.

The 2026 acquisitions marked a strategic shift from pure removal toward a broader privacy management platform. Block Party brought tools for social media safety and harassment protection. Permission Slip, acquired in July 2026, added the ability to send deletion and opt-out requests directly to companies that hold consumer data, complementing broker removals at the source.