Mister-auto Cuts Bot-Driven Costs & Frees Up DevOps Time with DataDome

Mister-auto, a leading European online auto parts retailer, part of the Stellantis Group, was facing a costly and persistent scraping problem on its website. Bots would gather important information about products and prices, and trigger numerous calls to a third-party provider, resulting in thousands of euros in unnecessary costs. By deploying DataDome’s bot protection, they eliminated all scraping, reduced the strain on DevOps, and gained stronger protection against evolving threats like AI-powered bots.

The challenge: Scraping bots with costly side effects

On the Mister-auto website, identifying a vehicle by license plate is a core feature and a key factor in the customer experience. But behind the scenes, each search triggers an API call to an external provider. These calls come at a price, of course, and when they don’t involve actual potential customers, the costs quickly add up without providing any real benefit.

“We had a lot of malicious behavior saturating our license plate endpoint,” recalls Steve Petit, DevOps Infrastructure Engineer and Platform Manager. “I was costing us between €2,000 and €3,000 per month, give or take. It was pure loss.”

Bot attacks are a growing concern across retail and e-commerce platforms, especially when they exploit features meant to improve user experience. The DevOps team found itself stuck in a loop of reactive bot defense, analyzing traffic in-house, writing IP-based rules, and fighting ever-evolving attacks. All this while other priorities were waiting. “We were spending far too much time managing these aggressive bots. It was inefficient and pulling us away from higher priorities,” says Steve.

On top of that, aggressive scraping was putting pressure on the infrastructure and opening the door to broader data exposure. Manual mitigation measures could no longer protect the brand, so the team set out to find a smarter solution.

The solution: Automated AI-based bot protection that adapts faster than attackers

After evaluating several options, Mister-auto chose DataDome for its accuracy in detecting scraping behavior and its ease of integration with their Google Cloud-based infrastructure.

DataDome’s Bot Protect was deployed to protect the vehicle identification endpoint from scraping bots, without adding any complexity. And that’s exactly what it did, providing advanced, AI-powered detection tailored to their website that proactively protected them. Steve’s team no longer had to spend time adjusting rules or maintaining systems, which was a welcome change.

Beyond its initial mission, DataDome also helped Mister-auto to stay informed about evolving tactics, including those driven by artificial intelligence, such as AI agents. “You can’t keep up with that kind of bot activity manually. DataDome sees patterns and behaviors we would never catch without full-time monitoring,” Steve says. “The detection updates are super-fast, the work that you’ve done around AI bots is impressive and really needed.”

Integration was handled smoothly by the team, with support from DataDome’s technical contacts and regular follow-ups.

The results: Real savings, no more stress, & stronger protection against AI bots

With DataDome, fighting bad bots has become a background task, with automated detection doing most of the work. “We’re no longer chasing bots manually. I barely think about scraping anymore,” Steve likes to say.

The DevOps team has regained valuable time, reducing its operational load while improving security. Traffic is now filtered intelligently, and anomalies are handled in collaboration with the DataDome team during meetings or informal conversations. “The support is very responsive, we are in direct contact through Slack and get quick answers,” Steve mentions.

The Cyberfraud Protection Platform has proven its worth time and again. For the team, it’s become indispensable. The return on investment is measured not only in financial terms, but also in terms of focus, efficiency, and peace of mind: “It’s a powerful tool, and it’s worth the investment. It’s not money wasted at all.”

Now that scraping is under control, the team can fully focus on migrating their platform to Adobe, confident that bot-related risks are being addressed. DataDome remains part of the plan, integrated into the new environment, with support on hand to ensure a smooth, secure transition.

Ultimately, what Steve appreciates is that the collaboration doesn’t feel purely transactional: “Even though it’s a cybersecurity product, there is a human element to it. My contacts with Rodolphe and Samuel are great, they’re approachable and always ready to share new insights about threats and solutions. You guys don’t rest on your laurels, you’ve got a solid roadmap, and that’s exciting.”

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