On November 11, 2025, the Fight Fraud Workgroup under i3forum officially launched the SMS Dispute Contract Clause, which aims to provide international operators with a unified and practical framework to tackle the increasingly severe issue of SMS Artificial Inflation of Traffic (AIT) fraud.
The core mechanism of the clause is as follows: once fraudulent SMS traffic is identified, operators can not only recover funds and reverse payments from their direct suppliers, but also hold intermediaries further down the chain accountable. This design is intended to impose tangible economic penalties on the responsible parties or accomplices of fraudulent activities, and fundamentally cut off the cash flow and economic incentives for fraudsters. Built on i3forum’s successful experience with voice fraud contract clauses, the new clause maintains consistency in structure and implementation with the existing framework, enabling operators already familiar with i3forum’s systems to integrate it quickly. i3forum encourages all operators to incorporate this clause into their existing contracts and promote its adoption among interconnection partners, so as to ensure a unified and consistent response across the globe.
This clause, together with the "SMS Fraud Dispute Process Document" and the GLF-i3forum "Messaging Code of Conduct", forms a comprehensive anti-fraud toolkit covering processes, commitments and oversight.
