Credit: Guilherme Maggieri via Unsplash
WPP, Publicis Groupe and denstu have a deal with regulators in the US stopping prosecution for allegedly unlawfully colluding to impose “brand safety” standards across the digital advertising industry.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said the agencies, together with their primary competitors Omnicom and IPG, operated through trade associations to establish a common “Brand Safety Floor” to target “misinformation”.
The FTC believes the advertising industry has been “plagued by deliberate, coordinated efforts” to steer ads away from certain news organisations, media outlets and social media networks.
This is seen as a reference to efforts by president Donald Trump's administration to root out political bias against conservative voices and causes.
The regulator said the ad agencies, to resolve the FTC’s charges, have agreed to a proposed order that will stop the alleged coordinated conduct and prevent it from occurring in the future.
“The ad agencies’ brand-safety conspiracy turned competition in the market for ad-buying services on its head,” said chairman Andrew Ferguson.
“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.
“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.”
The complaint alleges the ad agencies operated through their trade associations -- the World Federation of Advertisers’ Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ Advertiser Protection Bureau (APB) -- to establish common brand-safety standards.
Websites that included so-called “misinformation” were deemed to fall below the brand safety floor and thus risked becoming categorically ineligible for advertising revenue.
The FTC deal with the agencies needs to be approved by a federal judge.
Omnicom, which has absorbed IPG, are subject to a similar FTC order.
Among the platforms allegedly boycotted is Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, formerly Twitter.
Advertisers did withdraw, over concerns for brand safety, from Twitter when Musk took the platform private in 2022 and said he would champion free speech by easing content restrictions.
A Congressional investigation found that the GARM banded together the most powerful firms in their industry to “choke off” the advertising revenue of those who disagreed with them, disseminated information they believed to be untrue or refused to de-platform those who did.
GARM disbanded under a cloud of litigation and congressional investigation.
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