// LOCAL
Personal data does not land in an Untraced vault.
The scan, review, letters, and proof receipts stay local unless you approve sending a letter to a data broker.
// HOW WE'RE DIFFERENT
Removal services keep a copy of you. We don’t keep one of anyone.
Most data-removal companies create a second vault of your personal data. Untraced was built to avoid that trade.
| Question | Traditional services | Untraced |
|---|---|---|
| Where does your personal data live? | In their server-side vault so employees or contractors can act for you. | On your Mac. Untraced infrastructure does not hold your name, address, or scan results. |
| Is the source open? | Usually closed. You trust the dashboard and the company behind it. | AGPLv3 source. If Untraced shuts down, the source guarantee keeps the local path available. |
| Card on file required? | Usually yes. Account, email, and renewal trail are part of the product. | No card required. Lightning and on-chain BTC are native. Stripe is the less-private fallback. |
| Who signs the request? | Their employee, contractor, or automated server acts from their infrastructure. | Your Mac signs the letter locally after you approve the match. |
| Where do receipts live? | Inside their account dashboard. | On your machine, with Bitcoin-timestamped proof receipts you can export. |
// COVERAGE STRATEGY
Why 12, not 300
Competitors claim hundreds of data brokers. Many of those counts are user-initiated custom requests capped at 40-60 per year, not automated coverage. The breadth is real for some categories; it is marketing for others.
We hand-curated 12 data brokers: Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, Radaris, MyLife, Intelius, FastPeopleSearch, TruePeopleSearch, PeopleFinder, USSearch, InstantCheckmate, ThatsThem. These are the high-traffic upstream sources. The long tail of consumer data broker sites mostly aggregates downstream from these 12.
We cover what we can deliver: automated, signed locally, under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) plus state analog law. We don’t claim coverage we can’t honor.
// VISIBLE
You see every letter and every proof.
The product does not ask you to trust a progress dashboard. It shows the artifacts.
// PAYMENT
No account, no card by default.
Use a local account number, a recovery phrase, and Bitcoin payments. Card is available when convenience matters more than payment privacy.
// CLAIMS WE AVOID
The quiet part is the trust signal.
We don’t claim more data brokers.
More names on a list do not mean better removal. The first release covers 12 high-impact people-search data brokers.
We don’t claim magic effectiveness.
State privacy law creates leverage. Data brokers still respond on their own timelines, and some force mail.
We don’t borrow trust from badges.
No press-logo grids. No fake testimonials. The proof object is the code, the letter, and the receipt.
// SOURCE GUARANTEE · If Untraced shuts down, the full source stays available under AGPLv3 with the self-hosting notes needed to keep running it locally.
// VERIFY THE DIFFERENCE
Start with the Network Audit.
Run the scan, inspect the network log, then decide if the architecture earns your trust.