Feu Vert Eliminates Unwanted Traffic and Cuts Infrastructure Costs by 15%

The Problem: Strengthening Infrastructure and API Protection

For Feu Vert, DataDome is a long-standing partner. In 2017, the group was one of the first companies in the world to implement the DataDome solution, with the aim of protecting its e-commerce platform and APIs from fraudsters.

“Our online tools are an integral part of the customer journey, whether it’s to get information, prepare for a vehicle service appointment, or pay for purchases before picking them up in a store,” explains Guillaume Gamet, Head of Digital Factory at Feu Vert.

“So we have a fairly high volume of traffic, but at the time, we didn’t have any tools enabling us to identify unwanted requests arriving on our e-commerce platform or our APIs.”

Operating in a highly competitive sector, Feu Vert was frequently targeted by scrapers looking for pricing information, an activity that placed unnecessary pressure on its infrastructure and drove up costs. This was compounded by abusive – and sometimes costly – use of certain services.

“Every call has a cost, and we needed to protect our resources,” Guillaume observes.

The Solution: Bot Management on Autopilot

Together with Marc-Antoine Adt, Feu Vert’s IT quality and security manager, Guillaume started to look for a tool that would enable them to manage traffic efficiently, with a minimum of time and resources. After in-depth research into the tools available on the market, they selected DataDome.

The test period lasted a few weeks, and unveiled the true nature of their automated traffic: not only scrapers, but also fraudulent attempts to connect to customer accounts.

“The implementation was really very simple, with no technical difficulties, despite the fact that it’s quite a sophisticated solution,” Guillaume comments.

“Since this initial phase, we have also reviewed and optimized the architecture. DataDome is now installed at the very front of our network, so that the detection and routing is performed at the entry point for all navigation on our e-commerce platform. In this way, undesirable requests never reach the platform at all, and therefore have zero impact on its performance.”

The Results: Better Security, Lower Costs

For Guillaume, the main benefit of the DataDome solution is the added security it provides for Feu Vert’s e-commerce platform, APIs and data.

“The detection is extremely accurate, using specific algorithms for each type of navigation such as adding items to the shopping cart or creating an account. One of the major advantages is the additional security of our forms, which protects us against account takeovers. This is also part of our overall GDPR compliance measures,” he points out.

Another, by no means insignificant benefit: by eliminating unwanted traffic, Feu Vert has realized a substantial reduction of its infrastructure costs: “in the order of 15%”, Guillaume testifies.

In line with the initial goals, the DataDome protection operates autonomously, without any need for manual interventions.

“It’s great to be able to rely on a solution that updates its algorithms automatically, and that uses the knowledge it acquires from each individual customer website to the benefit of all users,” Guillaume comments. “And if any adjustments need to be made, for example to authorize—or not—a partner’s crawlers, the dashboard is very easy to use”.