Tinder is a popular mobile dating app that allows users to connect with others nearby. As Tinder grew exponentially to over a billion daily swipes, it needed to improve security and block fraudulent accounts. Tinder implemented TeleSign's phone verification and risk scoring solutions, which accurately identified 90% of spam traffic and fraudulent accounts from day one. This significantly improved Tinder's user experience and security posture.

1. Tinder burst onto the social media scene in 2012 as a
matchmaking mobile app. Its geolocation technology
allows users to set a specific radius and match with
anyone that is within that distance. Swipe to the right
means you like someone; swipe to the left means you
don’t. Tinder’s vision is to enable users to connect with
new and interesting people around them by allowing
them to emulate real world interactions, using the app.
The company won TechCrunch’s Crunchie Award for
“Best New Startup of 2013.”
Tinder exploded to over a million users in its first few
months and has grown exponentially ever since. With
tens of millions of active users, the company processes
more than a billion swipes daily. On average, accounts
are created for more than 25 million people a day.
Industry
• Internet - Dating
Profile
• Founded in 2012
• HQ in West Hollywood, CA
• Mobile App Available on
iPhone, iPad and Android
Challenges
• Need to proactively increase
security posture
• Need to block fraudulent
accounts and eliminate spam
Benefits
• Reduce 90% of spam traffic
• Improve overall delivery rates
by close to 20%
• Decrease fraudulent account
registration
• Improve user experience
• Monitor and alert of
suspicious users
Products
• TeleSign PhoneID Score
• TeleSign SMS Verification
Case Study
Tinder Reduces Spam Traffic
90 Percent with TeleSign
Once we had TeleSign in place, we were
able to block fraudulent accounts in a much more
sophisticated way. It’s been 100 percent accurate
and we’ve seen about a 90 percent reduction in
spam traffic as a result, from day one.
Ryan Ogle, Chief Technology Officer

2. Challenge
With such massive growth, Tinder needed to ensure the
authenticity and integrity of its fast-growing user accounts.
Any mobile app will have problems with fraudulent
accounts at the beginning and Tinder was no exception.
It needed to ensure its API was secure and authenticating
properly, protect the security of its users, prevent fraudulent
registrations and defend the system from the malicious
activity of bots and spammers.
Tinder CTO Ryan Ogle had decided from day one that
security was a top priority and felt strongly about protecting
the brand and the user base.
“Security has always been of the utmost importance to us,”
Ogle explains. “After our user base boomed, we decided that
we wanted to increase our ability to ensure integrity and
authenticity to make our system and users even more secure.”
Originally, Tinder intended to build some of these protections
in-house, but when it learned about the extensive features
and deep network of TeleSign’s solutions, Ogle decided to
partner with a team of experts.
“The network that TeleSign has is an enormous advantage
and it is exactly what we needed,” says Ogle. “It is a huge feat
to categorize the millions of phone numbers out there and
that’s something we could never do. It’s really impressive and
has been a great pairing for us.”
Solution
Tinder needed a third party that would authenticate the
phone numbers that are attached to new user signups and
alert and notify of any suspicious activity. When a new user
joins Tinder, they are allowed to create an account and log
in via Facebook sign-in. However, if a new account seems
suspicious, it will then be required to go through an extra
level of verification to ensure they are a real, legitimate user.
That’s where Tinder uses TeleSign’s PhoneID and SMS
Verification products to get an accurate rating of how
potentially risky a phone number is—if the score is high,
then the user is blocked.
TeleSign analyzes massive volumes of real-time and historical
data on phone numbers, including associated contact
information, phone types, geographies and carriers. Scoring
includes risk levels and recommendations for how to handle
accounts. The result is a reputation score that represents the
risk level and helps Tinder decide when to allow, challenge
and/or block transactions associated with any given phone
number. Tinder can verify that the number truly belongs
to the user creating the account. In addition, TeleSign’s
client services team recommended that Tinder implement
rate limits. This ensures that a limit is set for the amount of
accounts created utilizing the same phone number.
“Once we had TeleSign in place, we were able to block
fraudulent accounts in a much more sophisticated way.
It’s been 100 percent accurate and we’ve seen about a 90
percent reduction in spam traffic as a result, from day one,”
Ogle explains.
TeleSign’s verification uses a time-based one-time passcode
(TOTP) sent over SMS to ensure that the phone number
registered to the account is legitimate and not a fraudster
attempting to create fake accounts. These capabilities are
delivered via a REST API and easily integrated into Tinder’s
existing proprietary processes and workflows. “Further
validating the TeleSign solution, of the 196 countries in which
Tinder verifies and authenticates users, we’ve seen close
to 20 percent greater delivery rate than with our previous
vendor,” says Ogle.
Ogle continues, “A month after implementing TeleSign we
saw a significant drop in the amount of phone numbers the
algorithm recommended to block.
“Using TeleSign strengthens our brand, protects our users
and saves on support costs. It’s had a significant impact on
our business on many levels,” concludes Ogle.
About Tinder
Launched in 2012, Tinder is the world’s leading social app for
meeting new people. With it global reach, Tinder has users
in more than 196 countries around the world and is a top
10 lifestyle app in more 70 countries. In March 2015, Tinder
introduced Tinder Plus, giving users access to premium
features Rewind and Passport. Each day, 26 million matches
are made on Tinder. There are currently 6 billion matches
made total.
TeleSign is the leader in Mobile Identity solutions, helping
customers secure more than 3.5 billion end user accounts
worldwide and prevent registration fraud, while improving
user experience and managing costs. TeleSign delivers account
security and fraud prevention with two-factor authentication
(2FA) based on each user’s Mobile Identity (phone number,
device and behavior) and driven by real-time, global
intelligence, including reputation scoring and device data.
For more information, please visit www.telesign.com | @TeleSign
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