The Federal Trade Commission Extracts a Heavy Price for Approval of the Merger of Two Ad Titans: Stop Blacklisting and Boycotting Conservative Outlets

Two major ad companies wanted to merge, but the FTC commissioner forced them to sign a consent decree. They're promising that they will no longer subject conservative outlets to an advertising boycott.

As part of a landmark merger deal, the FTC secured a commitment from two global advertising giants not to discriminate against conservative media based on political views. The move follows revelations of past collusion aimed at defunding right-leaning outlets.

Key Details:

The FTC approved the merger between Omnicom and IPG with strict conditions against political viewpoint discrimination.

Both firms were previously involved in GARM, a now-defunct group that coordinated ad boycotts of center-right media.

The agreement prohibits coordinated blacklisting of media based on ideology and imposes regular compliance checks.

Diving Deeper:

Two of the world's largest advertising companies, Omnicom and Interpublic Group (IPG), will be barred from colluding or discriminating against media outlets based on political or ideological viewpoints as a condition of their newly approved merger, the Federal Trade Commission announced Monday.

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson revealed that the agency had secured what he called a "major victory" for viewpoint neutrality in media. In a rare move, the FTC imposed behavioral conditions on the merger, citing past coordination between the two firms and others to defund conservative media.

The firms, which together represent a third of the global advertising market, had been founding members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a group accused of blacklisting conservative outlets including Breitbart News, Fox News, and The Daily Wire. Ferguson emphasized that such coordination is "tantamount to an agreement not to compete on quality" and said the merger conditions will eliminate the need for costly litigation while preventing future abuses.

"Specifically, the proposed decision and order prohibits Omnicom and IPG from entering into or maintaining any agreement or practice that would steer advertising dollars away from publishers based on their political or ideological viewpoints," Ferguson explained.

The FTC is also continuing its broader investigation into whether more than a dozen advertising advocacy groups may have violated antitrust laws by engaging in similar viewpoint-based collusion. As part of the merger agreement, Omnicom and IPG agreed to cease any coordination that could blacklist publishers for political reasons and pledged to cooperate with federal investigators.

According to Ferguson, GARM once dismissed free speech as "an extreme global interpretation of the US Constitution," citing "principles of governance" crafted exclusively by "white men." A Congressional report found that GARM led efforts to starve conservative publishers of advertising revenue, effectively attempting to "destroy publishers of content which they disapproved."

A 2024 House Judiciary Committee report exposed internal GARM communications, including a message from an Omnicom executive referencing Breitbart, stating: "As much as we hated their ideology and bullshit, we couldn't really justify blocking them for misguided opinion..."

Ferguson clarified that while advertisers still have the right to choose where their ads appear, they are prohibited from engaging in collective boycotts or forming "exclusion lists" to pressure others to follow suit--what he called "the supreme evil of antitrust."

posted by Ace at 02:20 PM

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