Truecaller

Truecaller
Truecaller logo
Developer(s) True Software Scandinavia AB
Initial release September 2009 (2009-09)
Operating system Android, BlackBerry OS, iOS, Series 40, Symbian, Tizen, BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone
Type Telephone directory, Caller ID, Social integration, Spam blocker, Crowdsourcing
License Freeware
Website truecaller.com

Developed by True Software Scandinavia AB, Truecaller finds contact details globally given name or telephone number, and has an integrated caller ID service to achieve call-blocking functionality and social media integration to keep the phonebook up-to-date with pictures and birthdays. The client is available for Android, BlackBerry OS, iOS, Series 40, Symbian s60, Firefox OS, Tizen, BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone.

History

Truecaller was developed by True Software Scandinavia AB, a privately held company in Stockholm, Sweden founded by Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam in 2009.[1]

It was initially launched on BlackBerry 1 July 2009. After good response of users it launched for Symbian and Microsoft Windows Mobile. It was released for Android and Apple iPhone on 23 September 2009, for RIM Blackberry on 27 February 2012, for Windows Phone on 1 March 2012, and for Nokia Series 40 on 3 September 2012.As of September 2012 Truecaller had five million users[2] performing 120 million searches of the telephone number database every month.[3] As of 22 January 2013 Truecaller reached 10 million users.[4] As of December 2014 Truecaller had reached 100 million users worldwide.

In February 2014, Truecaller received $18.8 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, Open Ocean, Stefan Lennhammer, and an unnamed private investor. It also announced a partnership with Yelp to use Yelp's API data to help identify business numbers when they call a smartphone.[5]

On 7 July 2015, Truecaller launched its SMS App called Truemessenger in India exclusively. Truemessenger helps the users in identifying the sender of an SMS. Truecaller aimed 150 million users base in India.[6]

Features and functionality

The service is a global telephone directory and reverse directory that has caller ID, social media integration and call-blocking functionality.[7][8] It uses crowdsourced data, which enables it to work even in countries such as the UK and India where public data is not available.

Truecaller is available for Android,[9] iOS,[10] BlackBerry, Symbian,[11] Windows Mobile,[12] Windows Phone 7, and Windows Phone 8. The app is available in all countries.[13][14]

On 18 September 2012 Techcrunch announced that Open Ocean Capital,[15] a venture capital fund led by former MySQL and Nokia executives (including Michael Widenius,[16] founder of MySQL), were investing US$1.3 million in Truecaller to push Truecaller’s global reach.[17] Truecaller said that it intended to use the new funding to expand its footprint in "key markets"—specifically North America, Asia and the Middle East.[18]

In early 2014, Truecaller received a $18.8 million investment led by Sequoia Capital.[19] In October of the same year, they received $60 million from Niklas Zennstrom's Atomico investment firm and from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.[20]

Security and privacy issues

On 17 July 2013, Truecaller servers were allegedly hacked into by the Syrian Electronic Army.[21] The group claimed on its Twitter handle to have recovered 459 GBs of database, primarily due to an older version of WordPress installation on the servers. On 18 July 2013, Truecaller issued a statement on its blog stating that their website was indeed hacked, but claiming that the attack did not disclose any passwords or credit card information.[22]

TrueCaller uploads users' stored contacts to their servers to form a database of phone numbers.[23][24]This breaches the privacy rights of the people whose private numbers are publicly matched to their names without their knowledge and without their permission.

Reception

True Software Scandinavia AB won 'Company of the Year' in November 2014 at Mobilgalan, and also won 'Best Utility App' at Gold Mobile at the annual Swedish mobile awards (Mobilgalan) in November 2011.[25]

References

  1. ↑ Sredaktion, Dagens P. "About Truecaller".
  2. ↑ Rönnklint, Richard (2012-09-04). "Truecaller når 5 miljoner medlemmar" [TrueCaller reaches 5 million members]. AppLovin (in Swedish).
  3. ↑ Harald, Patrik (2012-09-19). "Open Ocean investerar i svenska Truecaller" [Open Ocean invests in Swedish TrueCaller] (in Finnish). Forummag.fi.
  4. ↑ Meyer, David (2013-01-22). "Big in India, Swedish phone directory service Truecaller hits 20M user milestone". Gigaom.
  5. ↑ Crook, Jordan (2014-02-06). "Truecaller Lands $18.8M Series B From Sequoia, Partners With Yelp To Verify Business Numbers". Tech Crunch.
  6. ↑ Agarwal, Amit (2015-07-07). "Truecaller Launches SMS App In India, Aims 150 mn Users Base". Digital World.
  7. ↑ "Swedish Startup Truecaller celebrates 1 Million mobile users". Scandinavian Startups. 2011-03-23.
  8. ↑ Kalle (2011-09-08). "Se vem som ringer med Truecaller" [See who's calling with TrueCaller]. Smartare Vardag [Smarter Living] (in Swedish). Telia.
  9. ↑ "Truecaller - Android-apps op Google Play". Google. Retrieved 2012-10-10.
  10. ↑ "Truecaller - worldwide number search and spam filter for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad". iTunes App Store. 2012-09-27.
  11. ↑ "Truecaller - See who is calling". OVI Store. Archived from the original on June 5, 2012. Retrieved 2012-10-10.
  12. ↑ "Search and find people worldwide". Truecaller. 2012-10-01.
  13. ↑ http://www.truecaller.com/support
  14. ↑ Milisic, William (2012-03-01). "Nya versioner av Truecaller ute nu!" [New versions of TrueCaller out now!]. Nyheter om Nokia [News about Nokia] (in Swedish). Nokia Sweden.
  15. ↑ "Investor in Community and Open Source Business". Open Ocean Capital. 2012-09-19.
  16. ↑ Videla, Emanuel (2012-09-19). "Miljonregn över svenska Truecaller" [Millions rain down on Swedish TrueCaller] (in Swedish). IT24/IDG. Retrieved 2012-10-10.
  17. ↑ Clayton, Nick (2012-09-20). "Truecaller Collects $1.3 Million for Crowd-Sourced Phone Book". Tech Europe - Wall Street Journal.
  18. ↑ Lomas, Natasha (2012-09-18). "Open Ocean Invests $1.3M To Push Crowdsourced Directory Truecaller's Global Reach". TechCrunch.
  19. ↑ http://www.truecaller.com/blog/truecaller-sequoia-funding-and-partners-with-yelp
  20. ↑ "Sweden's Truecaller clinches $60 million in venture capital funding". Reuters. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
  21. ↑ Selvan, Sabari (2013-07-17). "Truecaller Server hacking". eHacking News.
  22. ↑ "Truecaller Statement post hacking". Official blog. Truecaller. 2013-07-18.
  23. ↑ "Cyanogen Taps Truecaller in Effort to Build a Better Mobile OS | Mobile | LinuxInsider". www.linuxinsider.com. Retrieved 2016-01-20. The Truecaller app uploads contacts without giving users a chance a chance to filter out sensitive numbers or names, noted Jimmy Shah, senior director of research at Zimperium.
  24. ↑ De, Pallab. "How Truecaller Finds Numbers | How to Remove Your Number from Truecaller". Pallab dot Net. Retrieved 2016-01-20. Truecaller is a collaborative phone directory that uploads the entire phone book of the user to its database.
  25. ↑ "Guldmobilen Mobilgalan 2011" [Mobile Gold Mobile Awards 2011] (in Swedish). mobil.se.

External links

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