FTC nears ad‑boycott deals

The Federal Trade Commission is negotiating settlements with advertising companies in an antitrust probe over alleged coordinated boycotts of platforms including X, agency lawyer Jonathan Byron told a federal appeals court on April 13. (news.bloomberglaw.com) Reuters reported on April 12 that the talks involve several major ad companies and center on whether they coordinated to steer client spending away from platforms, including Elon Musk’s X, in violation of federal antitrust law. (money.usnews.com) Byron disclosed the talks during a District of Columbia Circuit hearing over the commission’s demand for documents from Media Matters for America. A lower court blocked that demand in 2025 after finding the inquiry was likely retaliatory, and appellate judges on Monday questioned whether the probe intruded on protected speech. (courthousenews.com) The case grew out of the advertising pullback that hit X after Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and loosened content-moderation rules. X sued the World Federation of Advertisers and several member companies in August 2024, alleging they organized an illegal boycott that cost the platform billions in revenue. (techcrunch.com) At the center of that lawsuit was the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a World Federation of Advertisers initiative created in 2019 after the Christchurch mosque shootings to help brands avoid placing ads next to violent or hateful material online. The group shut down days after X sued, saying it lacked the resources to continue under the legal pressure. (wfanet.org) The Federal Trade Commission has already used merger law to police similar conduct. In June 2025, the agency said Omnicom’s $13.5 billion purchase of Interpublic could proceed only if the combined company agreed not to coordinate with others to steer ad dollars toward or away from publishers based on political or ideological content. (ftc.gov) That order signaled that the commission was treating advertiser coordination itself as a competition issue in the media-buying market, not just a dispute over one platform’s traffic or moderation policies. Reuters said individual advertisers would still remain free to avoid specific sites on their own. (finance.yahoo.com) Media Matters has argued the commission’s inquiry punishes its reporting on ads appearing next to pro-Nazi content on X, while the Federal Trade Commission has said the organization failed to show the probe was retaliatory. The appeals court has not yet ruled, and Byron told judges the agency would notify them if the commission takes action on the settlements. (mediapost.com)