Tinder is trialing mandatory facial recognition security features in the US to verify profiles and crack down on impersonation and fake accounts. New users in California are now required to provide a biometric “Face Check” scan to confirm their face matches their profile photos for the dating service, Axios reported on Monday.

The Face Check feature involves taking a short video selfie that’s used to match biometric indicators and prove that the Tinder user isn’t a bot using artificially generated images, providing them with a verified badge upon completion. The scan will also check if the user’s face is being used in multiple accounts, which could help to prevent users from being impersonated or having their likeness used by deceptive “catfish” profiles. 

Face Check is separate from Tinder’s ID Check feature, which uses government-issued ID to verify users’ age and identity, while Face Check seemingly only requires users to upload a selfie video. Tinder users have provided video selfies to verify their profiles since 2023, but verification wasn’t a mandatory requirement for creating a Tinder account. This change means that Californians will have to complete some version of verification if they want to use the platform at all. 

“We see this as one part of a set of identity assurance options that are available to users,” Match Group’s head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, told Axios. “Face Check … is really meant to be about confirming that this person is a real, live person and not a bot or a spoofed account.”

Tinder says the selfie video is deleted once verification is complete, but that the platform stores a “non-reversible, encrypted face map” to detect duplicate user accounts in the future. 

The Face Check feature has already been piloted in Colombia and Canada, with Roth telling Axios that those tests showed “promising” results in “improving perceptions of authenticity” and reducing reports of bad actors. Tinder will now monitor how users in California respond to the Face Check feature before deciding if it should be rolled out more broadly across the US, according to Roth.

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Sources tell Digiday that Integral Ad Science has entertained suggestions of splitting from Publica, amid further speculation of take-private plans.

At the same time, there is consistent speculation that Criteo is considering a potential divestiture of its BidSwitch assets. This comes amid speculation of its own future on the public markets.  

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Welcome to the era of the ad network arms race. Over the past year, retail media and other ad networks have been pulling out all the stops to convince media buyers that they’ve evolved from performance-driven tools into full-funnel media ecosystems.

With more than 250 ad networks — and counting — all fighting for the same ad dollars, the competition is getting stiff, and the RMN space is becoming increasingly crowded. Amid the so-called retail media gold rush, Kristi Argyilan, the global head of Uber Advertising, turns to her own RMN playbook.

Dubbed the “godmother” of retail media by AdExchanger, Argyilan has seen the ad network category from every angle — buyer, seller, publisher, and client. Argyilan’s retail media scorecard dates back to her stint as president of Target’s Roundel back in 2019, svp of retail media at Albertsons Media Collective in 2021 and global head of Uber Ads since last December.

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TV and streaming are one and the same in the eyes of today’s consumers, and, therefore, marketers. As a result, the majority of marketers are directing ad spend toward TV, with a focus on ads that drive impressions and branding.

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Advertisers aren’t feeling the direct blow of generative AI on traffic the way publishers are. But they see what’s coming. Tripadvisor, for one, is already adjusting its strategy as the foundation of search starts to shift. 

It’s not going full Dotdash Meredith – the publisher has openly braced for a future without Google traffic – but a recalibration is clearly underway. 

“Google’s AI mode in search is going to eat large chunks of search,” said Matthew Dacey, CMO at Tripadvisor. “It’s going to happen fast as they [Google] push it and more people subsequently adopt it.”

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