In a rare display of unified defense, eight of the world’s most powerful technology firms have signed a landmark pact to disrupt the global scam networks currently siphoning billions of dollars from consumers.
The Online Services Accord Against Scams signed by Google, Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc., OpenAI, LinkedIn, Adobe Inc., and Match Group establishes a framework for sharing real-time threat intelligence.
The agreement, first reported by Axios, arrives just ahead of the UN Global Fraud Summit in Austria, highlighting a strategic pivot in how the industry handles transnational crime syndicates.
The motivation for the accord is rooted in the sheer scale of the crisis. According to FBI data, consumers lost more than $16 billion to scammers and cybercriminals in 2024 alone. Experts note that the rise of generative AI has exacerbated the issue, allowing bad actors to create highly sophisticated, believable personas and messages that bypass traditional red flag detection.
“We can’t solve this alone,” Karen Courington, Google’s vice president of consumer trust experiences, told Axios. “We need others across the industry to unite in the effort to tackle scams more collectively.”
Under the voluntary agreement, the signatories have pledged to exchange data on transnational criminal networks with both peers and law enforcement; deploy new AI-driven tools to detect fraud faster and implement enhanced security features; require more rigorous identity checks for financial transactions; and formally call on governments to designate scam prevention as a top-tier national priority.
One of the most significant hurdles in fraud prevention is that scammers rarely stay in one place. As Scott Knapp, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide buyer risk prevention, observed, a single scam often spans social media, dating apps like Tinder or Hinge, and payment platforms.
Previously, companies traded details on a one-off basis during specific investigations. This accord formalizes that relationship, creating a permanent venue to discuss which defensive measures are working and how threat actors are adapting their tactics.
Steven Masada, assistant general counsel of Microsoft’s digital crimes unit, anticipates that this faster communication will lead to more effective takedowns of the underlying infrastructure used by these global rings.
Although the accord is voluntary and lacks formal penalties for non-compliance, it signals a shift toward proactive, cross-platform defense. As the Trump administration ramps up federal pressure via recent executive orders, the tech industry is moving to prove it can police its own ecosystems before stricter regulations are forced upon them.
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