Google, Twitter, Facebook, AOL and the IAB have joined forces to form the Ads Integrity Alliance, geared toward keeping protecting users from ads that contain badware. The initiative was announced today by StopBadware.org.
The organization says the alliance will develop and share definitions, industry policy recommendations and best practices, serve as a platform for sharing info about bad actors, and share relevant trends with policymakers and law enforcement agencies.
“The Ads Integrity Alliance is a natural extension of StopBadware’s mission to make the Web safer by combating badware,” said StopBadware executive director, Maxim Weinstein. “No one can address Internet-scale threats on their own, so we’re bringing together industry leading organizations to tackle the problem collaboratively.”
In a blog post, Google’s Global Public Policy Manager, Eric Davis, wrote, “In 2011, Google alone disabled more than 130 million ads and 800,000 advertisers that violated our policies on our own and partners’ sites, such as ads that promote counterfeit goods and malware. You can read more about our efforts to review ads and also see the numbers over time. Other players in the industry also have significant initiatives in this area. But when Google or another website shuts down a bad actor, that scammer often simply tries to advertise elsewhere.”
Google put out this video about how it keeps ads safe a few months ago:
“No individual business or law enforcement agency can single-handedly eliminate these bad actors from the entire web,” Davis added. “As StopBadware has shown, the best way to tackle common problems across a highly interconnected web, and to move the whole web forward, is for the industry to work together, build best practices and systems, and make information sharing simple.”
StopBadware is currently looking to hire a program manager to oversee the operations and growth of the alliance.