Today StopBadware announced the formation of an industry partnership to combat bad ads. Founding members of the new 'Ads Integrity Alliance' inlcude Google, AOL, Facebook, Twitter and the IAB.

StopBadware hosts the Badware Website Clearinghouse which lists websites identified and examined by partners such as Google as containing or linking to malware and related software.

Since its beginnings in 2006, StopBadware has enabled many websites, service providers and software providers to share real-time information in order to warn users and eliminate malware (such as viruses, phishing sites and malicious downloads) on the web. The founder members of the alliance believe that it can make a similarly important contribution to the goal of identifying and removing 'bad ads' - including those that deliver malware, direct users to scams, or try to sell counterfeit goods - from the web.

"The Ads Integrity Alliance is a natural extension of StopBadware?s mission to make the Web safer by combating badware," said the nonprofit organization's 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."

The Ads Integrity Alliance will develop and share definitions, industry policy recommendations, and best practices, serve as a platform for sharing information about bad actors and also share relevant trends with policymakers and law enforcement agencies.