Twitter, Facebook, Google, AOL and the Interactive Advertising Bureau have come together to battle bad ads that download malware, send users to scammy sites and try to sell counterfeit goods.

The new initiative is called the Ads Integrity Alliance and was launched on Thursday through the StopBadware organization.

Google announced the initiative on their blog, explaining that,

“No individual business or law enforcement agency can single-handedly eliminate these bad actors from the entire web. 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.”

Google, Twitter and the other participants in the Alliance will work together to develop shared approaches to getting rid of bad ads and the companies that create them. They will also work with law enforcement agencies to share trends and other information related to duplicitous online advertising.

Ads on Twitter look very different from ads on Google or Facebook, but it’s a great step in the right direction to see these internet giants working together. Spam is prevalent on Twitter, and maybe by tapping into the expertise and resources of these other companies, they’ll be able to more effectively identify and eliminate the malicious tweeters.

(Spam image via Shutterstock)