Big Advertisers Settle Case with FTC over Leftist Censorship in Advertising and Suspected Collusion Against Breitbart, Other Conservatives

Three of the world’s largest advertising companies settled Wednesday with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over claims that they colluded on policies to combat alleged misinformation that denied advertising revenue to conservative publishers such as Breitbart News.

The FTC said in a complaint filed on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas that WPP, Dentsu, and Publicis coordinated on policies that limited the number of ads that ran on sites with content that the industry had identified as misinformation. The policy resulted in fewer ads running on media outlets such as Breitbart News, punishing outlets that ran content that was “lawful but disfavored.” The filing explained that these advertisers sought to impose common “brand safety” standards across the digital advertising industry. The FTC stated that the ad agencies, with their primary competitors, Omnicom and IPG, operated through their trade associations to establish a “Brand Safety Floor” to combat “misinformation.”

“The ad agencies’ brand-safety conspiracy turned competition in the market for ad-buying services on its head,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a written statement. “The antitrust laws guarantee participation in a market free from conduct, such as economic boycotts, that distort the fundamental competitive pressures that promote lower prices, higher quality products and increased innovation.”

“As we explain in our complaint, the brand-safety agreement limited competition in the market for ad-buying services and deprived advertisers of the benefits of differentiated brand-safety standards that could be tailored to their unique advertising inventory,” the FTC chairman said.

Ferguson continued:

This unlawful collusion not only damaged our marketplace, but also distorted the marketplace of ideas by discriminating against speech and ideas that fell below the unlawfully agreed-upon floor. The proposed order remedies the dangers inherent to collusive practices and restores competition to the digital news ecosystem.

A spokesman for WPP said in a statement that the agreement “reflects our existing and ongoing commitment to provide our clients with unbiased advice as they decide where to place their media.” A spokesman for Dentsu said the company was “fully committed to operating transparently, with integrity, and in strict compliance with all applicable laws.” Publicis had not responded to a request for comment from the New York Times.

The FTC said in its filing that the ad agencies “coordinated” through the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), an entity created by the World Federation of Advertisers, of which the three advertisers are members.

The agency said in its filing that GARM moved to change its definition of “misinformation” to target how GARM claimed Breitbart News used facts “selectively to mislead”:

GARM did not stop at promulgating neutral rules; it put its hand on the scale. In November 2021, the GARM Initiative Lead had suggested including “willfully misleading” content in the “misinformation” category to ensure that advertising revenue would be denied to the conservative website Breitbart specifically. The GARM leader explained to an executive from GroupM (WPP): “The example of how Breitbart may use facts selectively to mislead was an example given” of the need to amend GARM’s working definition of “misinformation.” Ultimately, GARM implemented the Initiative Lead’s suggestion. Contemporaneously with GARM’s formulation and implementation of this additional Brand Safety Floor category, conservative publishers identified as publishing what the Brand Safety Floor defined as “misinformation” suffered dramatic declines in their sales of digital advertising inventory. [Emphasis added]

The FTC filing contended that there was evidence, even after GARM was dissolved, that advertisers may have planned to continue its Brand Safety Policy work.

Four days after GARM was dismantled, WPP sent a memo to business partners, stating that WPP would continue to abide by GARM standards despite GARM’s dissolution. Dentsu joined a research initiative led by 614 group, a research and consulting firm, that was “publicly characterized” as an effort to continue the now-defunct GARM’s work. After scrutiny from the House Judiciary Committee, Denstu abandoned its work.

In October 2024, a high-ranking executive at a major trade association said that he would not discuss GARM until after the November 2024 election.

He wrote in an email:

Heard we are planning to discuss GARM as a hot topic. . . . I would not discuss what happens next as we are still discussing that with [another trade association] and 4A’s . . . . We have agreed to wait until the dust settles after the election to see where the political chips fall….we are regrouping at the end of November [2024].”

The FTC explained:

These actions—and the conversations taking place between members of the trade associations—in the months following GARM’s dissolution and leading up to the presidential election, demonstrate an ability and willingness to reengage in this anticompetitive conspiracy depending on “where the political chips fall” in the future.

In June 2025, the FTC had announced that, as part of the FTC’s approval of a merger between two of the largest advertising companies, the advertising giants agreed not to collude or discriminate based on political or ideological viewpoints.

Ferguson’s announcement at the time explained that the FTC had extracted a major victory as part of the agency’s agreement for Omnicom and IPG to merge. The two advertising firms comprise a third of the world’s “Big Six” advertising firms. As part of the merger agreement, the firms said they would not agree to or maintain any practice to discriminate based on political viewpoints.

The House Judiciary Committee revealed through its investigation that John Montgomery, then-executive vice president of Global Brand Safety, wrote to Rob Rakowitz, the leader of GARM:

There is an interesting parallel here with Breitbart. Before Breitbart crossed the line and started spouting blatant misinformation, we had long discussions about whether we should include them on our exclusion lists. As much as we hated their ideology and bullshit, we couldn’t really justify blocking them for misguided opinion. We watched them very carefully and it didn’t take long for them to cross the line[.] [Emphasis added]

Ferguson, in his June 2025 statement, added that GARM aimed to “destroy publishers of content which they disapproved.”

An FTC statement said on April 15, 2026, “If approved by a federal judge, the order will ensure that each of the biggest U.S. advertising agencies are prevented from engaging in agreements that would set common brand safety standards or restrict advertising based on biased and politically motivated criteria.”