Scam comes in various shapes and forms - from luring victims to voluntarily part with the money to outright credit card fraud. We all heard stories about scammers infiltrating security, defrauding customers and hurting business reputation. Here is one high tech solution for reducing online abuse.

Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, Iovation is geared to fight online fraud in many industries, including Dating. It performs more than three million daily fraud checks for its customers. Greg Pierson, founder and CEO of Iovation, explains the technology and shares his vision in this exclusive interview for readers of the Dating Ad Network blog:

Q: How your technology helps fighting scam and fraud in the dating business?

A: iovation pioneered the use of device reputation for managing online fraud and abuse for Internet dating sites and social communities. Our patented fraud management technology focuses on the reputations of physical Internet devices to help online dating sites gain a deeper understanding of the computers used by their members to create new identities and accounts. iovation’s real-time ReputationManager device reputation service identifies computers and accounts that have a history of fraudulent and abusive behavior, and exposes hidden associations between devices and accounts within a given network.

The service is built on iovation’s Device Reputation Authority database, which is the world’s only shared device reputation network that manages the reputations of over 80 million unique computers and mobile devices worldwide. Our online dating customers share this information to recognize or re-recognize devices connecting to their network and allows them to immediately act on a device if it has been associated with any type of fraud or abuse that is important to them such as email spam, predatory behavior, financial fraud and chat abuse. In helping online communities expose fraudulent devices trying to gain access into their online dating environments, we bring additional value that goes beyond an insurance solution and encompasses a real return on investment that is not only about stopping fraud and abuse, but also about reducing operational costs and increasing revenue through more precise online risk management.

Q: What other industries and online communities benefit from your services?

A: iovation’s customers represent many industries including online communities, online retail, financial services, online gaming and online gambling. Because many of today’s fraudsters are diversifying their operations and working with their peers across multiple industries, we believe working together within and across industries to combat fraud and abuse strengthens online businesses’ overall fraud management capabilities.

Q: Some people are concerned that tracking technologies jeopardize online privacy. What do you tell them?

A: We understand how important online privacy is, especially in the online dating world. iovation protects online communities from online fraud and abuse while protecting the identity and privacy of their individual members. Our device-based fraud management service protects individuals’ privacy by not requiring any personally identifiable information (PII). All information we provide to our customers is relative to the Internet device, itself, not the individual.

Q: Is there a way to white-list a used computer someone bought on eBay, or when several people use same PC in a public location or a family and one user earns ‘bad reputation’ - how do you handle such scenarios?

A: Yes. iovation’s Device Reputation Authority fraud network has the functionality to make exceptions on computers that have fraudulent evidence placed on them. For example, if a device has fraudulent evidence on it, that evidence can be resolved through our system. Our customers also have the ability to choose what type of fraudulent or abusive evidence they want to act on, and which ones they don’t want to act on.

Q: How do you see the future of the fraud and abuse management?

A: Unfortunately, today’s online fraudsters can easily and readily change identities at will to perpetrate online fraud and abuse. This, combine this with the fact that fraudsters are more organized, poses a real problem for fraud managers in any industry. We believe that one of the strongest countermeasures against organized fraud is to collaborate with your peers and across industries to combat more sophisticated forms of fraud and abuse that are becoming more and more difficult to detect. Companies that share device reputation information through a global network benefit from their peers’ fraud experiences, tools and expertise, which can augment any fraud management system that is currently working alone.

Are you working in the online dating business? Interested in interview? Submit your interview inquiries here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 3:10 pm and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.