Meet the Writer: OneRep CEO Dimitri Shelest on Writing and Online Privacy

So let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Dimitri. I'm 35, and I've been an entrepreneur most of my adult life.

At university, I studied IT to become a programming or computer science teacher. Truth be told, I didn't work as a teacher much as I almost immediately got into SEO consulting and my own web projects.

I worked on a travel planner, a doctor search site, and even a food blog that my wife and I launched together. As is often the case, my early projects were an enriching experience, but they didn't really flourish.

However, the SEO work for my doctor search site led me to the idea for onerep.com. The site was a simple doctor name search optimization where prospective patients could read reviews on their hunt for the right doctor.

While doing this project, I came across various so-called "people-search" sites that also search by name but are not limited to doctors and other professionals. They publish information about almost any person in the U.S. I thought that many people would want to remove their names from these websites if they had a chance. To fill that need, I built a small team of like-minded people, and we created a simple minimum viable product (MVP). That's how it all started, and today OneRep is one of the leaders in online privacy protection with a 5-year track record. We have automatically removed more than 5 million consumer public records from people-search sites.

Interesting! What was your latest Hackernoon Top story about?

I only recently started writing for Hackernoon. My first story made it to the Hackernoon top stories, and explained how Google endangers our privacy by encouraging people-search sites to expose more information on us.

Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about?

Obviously, privacy violation is an increasingly popular topic for many reasons, like questionable data collection practices by businesses, continuous data breaches, and privacy scandals in the press involving tech companies. People are becoming more aware of personal information exposure and its risks.

I know a lot about online privacy, and my knowledge can help people protect themselves. If the Hackernoon community finds this beneficial, I will continue writing about personal data and privacy on the Internet, as well as the risks associated with privacy breaches.

Great! What is your usual writing routine like (if you have one?)

Honestly, I just sit down and write. I write in the morning because I find that is when I get most of my ideas, although I don't force it if the right words don't come. I think the key is to write about what's important to you. And that's exactly what I do - I write about what I know but what may not be obvious to people not familiar with the personal data protection domain.

It's vital for me to share my knowledge with others because many people are unaware of the extent of their privacy violations. Many OneRep users learn about the risks of Internet privacy breaches only after they've become victims of identity theft, online fraud, or doxxing and have to deal with the consequences. If my ideas inspire anyone to proactively protect themselves and their personal information, I will consider my mission accomplished.

Being a writer in tech can be a challenge. It’s not often our main role, but an addition to another one. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing?

Yes, writing is a challenge for me, largely because it takes a lot of time to write something worthy. At the same time, my schedule is also busy with other business-related tasks and activities. Plus, I always want what I write to be both useful and easy to read.

The latter is difficult to achieve when it comes to privacy protection because the technical details involved can easily bore readers. Of course, I don't pretend to be a genuine writer. I didn't write a lot before, but OneRep has helped me see that people don't know much about privacy. Many are unaware that their personal data is being sold and how it may affect them. So I decided I needed to spread the word about that.

What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career?

My career goals are all about OneRep. Every day brings new challenges as we work to expand the functionality of our platform to turn it into a universal tool for protecting personal data online.

Our team has tripled since our beginning, and we remain focused on removing personal data from data broker websites. But that's not all that keeps us busy today. In fact, we are in a great spot to continue building and innovating. In addition to our growing individual user base, we're increasing partnerships with more companies—public and private—to offer our services as an employee benefit.

I see this as a very timely and useful development because businesses and people working for them increasingly need protection from privacy and security breaches caused by employees’ personal information exposure. By taking care of this information on the internet, we help to eliminate both personal risks such as identity theft, fraud, real-life and cyber-stalking, as well as reduce workplace cyber threats for businesses like phishing attacks, data breaches, and so on.

Wow, that’s admirable. Now, something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice?

I can occasionally be found surfing short videos on TikTok and Instagram, though I admit that these highly addictive social media candies urge us to spend more and more time browsing current events, trends, and creators that express themselves in their videos.

Do you have a non-tech-related hobby? If yes, what is it?

I've recently been playing tennis in my spare time. It helps me relax and switch gears.

What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next?

I plan to continue to write about what I know - online privacy.

Thanks for taking the time to join our “Meet the writer” series. It was a pleasure. Do you have any closing words?

I would love to share a tip for folks who want to safeguard their online privacy but don't know where to start. Whether for the discount at your local grocery store or signing up for an app, be mindful of how you treat your personal information. Before disclosing any personal details, just ask yourself this: Is it worth the risk? A simple exercise of answering this question will soon become part of your privacy routine to protect your data, minimizing the threats associated with the spread of your personal information.