The Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of eight states filed suit on April 15, 2026, against three of the world's largest advertising agency holding companies - WPP (operating as GroupM Worldwide LLC), Publicis, Inc., and Dentsu US, Inc. - alleging that the firms unlawfully conspired to impose uniform brand safety standards across the digital advertising industry, depriving certain conservative publishers of advertising revenue and dampening competition in the market for media buying services.

The complaint, filed as Case 4:26-cv-469 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division, names the FTC alongside the attorneys general of Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. It charges the defendants with violating Section 1 of the Sherman Act and Section 5 of the FTC Act through an illegal agreement in restraint of trade. The case was filed on the same day the FTC published a press release announcing a proposed consent order that the three agencies have agreed to.

How the conspiracy allegedly worked

According to the complaint, the coordinated conduct began in April 2018, when the six largest global advertising holding companies - referred to throughout the document as the "Big Six" - formed the Advertiser Protection Bureau ("APB") within the trade association known as the American Association of Advertising Agencies, or the "4As." The Big Six at the time included the three defendants plus Omnicom, IPG, and Havas. As one ad agency executive described the APB's founding, according to the complaint, "the major holding companies came together under the 4As and agreed that brand safety is so important, that we must combine efforts, become one voice, and stop sending potential mixed signals." A vice president at the 4As was equally blunt: "When it comes to brand and consumer safety, media agencies have to put competition aside."

Brand safety in the advertising industry conventionally refers to preventing ads from appearing next to content that a brand believes would damage its reputation - for example, blocking ads from running on websites linked to terrorism, fraud, or illegal activity. Brand suitability, a related concept, refers to a more individualized standard, allowing an airline, say, to avoid placing ads next to articles about plane crashes. The complaint argues that before 2018, each of the Big Six developed differentiated approaches to these issues, competing against each other to offer the best tools at the lowest cost.

That competition, the FTC alleges, was abandoned. In September 2018, the APB promulgated a "Brand Safety Floor" and an accompanying "Brand Suitability Framework," establishing common content categories - including "Debated Sensitive Social Issues" and later "Misinformation" - that all member agencies agreed to treat as categorically ineligible for advertising support. According to the complaint, the Managing Partner of Brand Safety for the Americas at GroupM (WPP) stated at the time: "The foundation of Brand Safety must be built on a concrete, universal understanding of content that is never appropriate under any circumstances."

The agencies did not stop there. In June 2019, the World Federation of Advertisers established the Global Alliance for Responsible Media ("GARM"), and the APB formally partnered with GARM the following month. All six of the Big Six holding companies became founding GARM members. According to the complaint, GARM became the mechanism through which the jointly developed APB standards were pushed across the broader advertising ecosystem. A GroupM (WPP) executive wrote in February 2020 that GARM was a forum for agencies to "check their competitive relationships at the door (GroupM vs Publicis)" while engaged in brand safety discussions.

The complaint provides specific detail on how "Misinformation" was added as a formal category to the Brand Safety Floor. In July 2020, GroupM (WPP) placed the question of adding a new "Misinformation" category on the agenda for the Big Six via the APB. A Publicis executive, writing back to the GARM Initiative Lead on July 15, 2020, noted that the Big Six "met yesterday on misinformation and had a ton of back and forth discussion. We're close, but not 100% there." By June 2022, GARM formally added "Misinformation" as a new Brand Safety Floor category. As the complaint notes, "2021 was about agreeing to act on Misinformation."

The FTC's filing also describes an internal GARM communication warning participants to keep their coordination confidential. According to the complaint, the GARM Initiative Lead wrote to the Big Six and others: "The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club."

The role of third-party misinformation designators

The complaint names several organizations that the FTC alleges were used to operationalize the misinformation category within the Brand Safety Floor. NewsGuard, described in the complaint as "a self-described ratings agency that ranks the reliability of media outlets," markets itself as a means to disrupt advertising revenue for "misinformation publishers" by licensing exclusion lists to advertisers, according to the filing. The Global Disinformation Index ("GDI") is described as an activist group that partners with governments and corporations to target "disinformation." Media Matters for America, which describes itself as "a progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media," is also named.

According to the complaint, IPG told rival agencies in a February-March 2022 exchange organized by GARM: "We're leveraging NewsGuard to avoid anything that scores red (fail) on being a reputable/quality news source." Publicis told its competitors that it would advise clients to "consider trusted news sources as areas to help eliminate funding for misinformation: NewsGuard helps identify and exclude misinformation sites and apps and can be activated through our global exclusion list."

The complaint further alleges that GARM's Initiative Lead suggested in November 2021 that the definition of "misinformation" be written to include "willfully misleading" content - specifically citing the conservative website Breitbart as the intended target. The GARM leader explained to a GroupM (WPP) executive: "The example of how Breitbart may use facts selectively to mislead was an example given" of the need to amend the working definition. That suggestion was ultimately implemented.

Market power and anticompetitive effects

The complaint situates the conduct within a detailed picture of the media buying market. According to the filing, as of 2023, the Big Six collectively accounted for approximately $81 billion out of a total of $155 billion in U.S. media billings, representing a 52% share. Today, the complaint states, the largest ad agencies control over $81 billion of ad-buying power.

Programmatic advertising - the method of buying and selling digital ad inventory through automated technology including real-time bidding ("RTB") - is central to the complaint's account of how the conspiracy caused harm. Advertisers bid on individual ad slots, with auctions occurring in real time typically within milliseconds. Publishers earn revenue at a cost per mille ("CPM"), meaning a price per thousand ad impressions. When major ad agencies agreed to exclude certain publishers from their campaigns through common exclusion lists, those publishers lost access to a significant portion of available ad spending.

The complaint argues that, absent the agreement, each of the Big Six would have independently developed differentiated brand safety standards, competing on quality, cost, and targeting precision - all to the benefit of their advertiser clients. The CEO of the 4As himself acknowledged in 2021 that the approach reduced advertising inventory and narrowed reach, writing to advertisers: "you narrow your inventory and you're narrowing your REACH and you're hurting publishers and journalists."

According to the complaint, conservative publishers that fell below the Brand Safety Floor "suffered dramatic declines in their sales of digital advertising inventory" contemporaneously with GARM's formulation and implementation of the additional misinformation category.

GARM's dissolution and risk of recurrence

GARM dissolved on August 9, 2024, citing "recent allegations." That dissolution came four days after X (formerly Twitter) filed an antitrust lawsuit in a Texas court alleging that GARM members illegally colluded to withhold billions in advertising revenue from the platform - a legal action that the WFA's disbanding of GARM followed almost immediately. The House Judiciary Committee had separately investigated GARM and released a July 10, 2024 interim staff report titled "GARM's Harm: How the World's Biggest Brands Seek to Control Online Speech," concluding that the information uncovered was "alarming" and that the coordination was "likely illegal under the antitrust laws."

The FTC's complaint does not treat GARM's closure as an end to the risk. According to the filing, four days after GARM dissolved, GroupM (WPP) sent a memorandum to business partners stating it would continue to abide by GARM standards despite the group's closure. Dentsu briefly joined a research effort by the 614 Group described publicly as a continuation of GARM's work, before withdrawing following further scrutiny from the House Judiciary Committee.

A February 2026 letter from the 4As, cited in the complaint, noted that brand safety "is not a topic of focus in the current planning priorities" but "might become a focus at the Association again in the future if the advertisers who are clients of Association member agencies indicate they want increased focus on brand safety from their agencies." An October 2024 email from a high-ranking executive at an unnamed trade association, also cited in the complaint, read: "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."

The proposed order

To resolve the charges without a full trial, WPP, Publicis, and Dentsu have agreed to a proposed consent order. If approved by a federal judge, the order would permanently prohibit each of the three firms from entering into agreements that set common brand safety standards or restrict advertising based on what the FTC characterizes as biased or politically motivated criteria. The Commission vote to issue the complaint and final order was 1-0-1, with Commissioner Meador recused.

Omnicom and IPG - which closed their $13.5 billion merger on approximately November 26, 2025 - are subject to a similar FTC order issued separately. That earlier order, finalized in September 2025, established a five-year monitoring period and explicitly prohibited the combined entity from coordinating with other agencies on advertising placements based on political or ideological viewpoints.

FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson commented on the action in the press release. "The ad agencies' brand-safety conspiracy turned competition in the market for ad-buying services on its head," Ferguson said. "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." 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."

Why this matters for the marketing industry

The case sits at the intersection of several major currents that have shaped digital advertising over the past several years. For the marketing community, it raises direct questions about how brand safety tools are designed, who controls them, and what happens when agencies coordinate rather than compete on those tools.

The FTC's 2026-2030 strategic plan, published April 3, 2026, identified anticompetitive mergers and business practices as enforcement priorities, with the plan explicitly emphasizing the use of FTC economists as expert witnesses rather than external consultants. That plan arrived as the agency simultaneously contended with a March 20, 2026 Fifth Circuit ruling that vacated its cease-and-desist order against Intuit, raising questions about the constitutional viability of the FTC's internal adjudication process for some categories of cases. Filing this brand safety case directly in federal district court - rather than through administrative proceedings - circumvents that vulnerability.

The case also arrives at a moment of structural stress for several of the defendants. WPP reported a 7.8% revenue drop to £6.66 billion and began significant workforce reductions in 2025. Dentsu posted a $2.18 billion loss and abandoned plans to sell its international operations after failing to find a buyer. Both agencies had also quietly exited The Trade Desk's OpenPath programme in early 2026 over concerns about hidden fees and supply chain transparency.

The brand safety landscape these agencies helped build is itself under pressure. X has deployed its Grok AI model as a core brand safety scoring engine in a bid to recover an estimated $1.18 billion in lost advertising revenue - revenue the platform argues it lost at least partly because of GARM-coordinated advertiser departures. Third-party verification firms including IAS and DoubleVerify, which built significant business lines around GARM-aligned measurement frameworks, face uncertainty about how their standard-setting role is defined going forward.

The FTC's complaint, with its detailed recounting of internal emails and GARM presentations, also raises forward-looking questions for the programmatic ecosystem. Exclusion lists - the primary technical instrument through which the Brand Safety Floor was enforced - are standard infrastructure in any programmatic campaign. Every major demand-side platform and agency trading desk uses them. The complaint does not challenge exclusion lists as such, but it does challenge the coordinated process by which the agencies agreed on which publishers to place on those lists. The line between legitimate individual brand safety decisions and anticompetitive collective action is now a live legal question.

Timeline

  • April 2018 - The Big Six advertising holding companies form the Advertiser Protection Bureau (APB) within the 4As, with a founding declaration that agencies should "put competition aside" on brand safety
  • September 2018 - The APB promulgates the Brand Safety Floor and Brand Suitability Framework, establishing common content categories including "Debated Sensitive Social Issues"
  • June 2019 - The World Federation of Advertisers establishes GARM; all Big Six agencies join as founding members
  • July 2019 - GARM and the APB formally partner; a Publicis executive drafts language for cross-agency coordination on "bad actors"
  • July 2020 - GroupM (WPP) places "Misinformation" on the agenda for a new Brand Safety Floor category; the Big Six begin negotiations
  • September 2020 - GARM releases its first version of the Brand Safety Floor and Framework, closely tracking APB categories
  • June 2021 - A GARM document explicitly requests that "articles of misinformation and disinformation are removed from monetized content and media plans"
  • November 2021 - GARM's Initiative Lead suggests writing the misinformation definition to target Breitbart specifically; the suggestion is implemented
  • June 2022 - GARM formally adds "Misinformation" as a new Brand Safety Floor category
  • December 8, 2024 - Omnicom and IPG announce merger talks
  • July 10, 2024 - House Judiciary Committee publishes "GARM's Harm" report, concluding GARM coordination was "likely illegal under the antitrust laws"
  • August 6, 2024 - X files antitrust lawsuit against GARM and advertisers in a Texas court
  • August 9, 2024 - GARM dissolves, citing recent allegations
  • August 13, 2024 - GroupM (WPP) sends memorandum to business partners confirming it will continue abiding by GARM standards despite the group's closure
  • June 2025 - FTC issues Civil Investigative Demands to media rating companies including NewsGuard and GDI
  • September 26, 2025 - FTC finalizes consent order for Omnicom's acquisition of IPG, including prohibitions on brand safety coordination with other agencies
  • November 26, 2025 - Omnicom closes its acquisition of IPG, reducing the Big Six to five major holding companies
  • April 3, 2026 - FTC publishes its 2026-2030 Strategic Plan, identifying anticompetitive conduct in digital advertising as a priority
  • April 15, 2026 - FTC and eight states file complaint against WPP, Publicis, and Dentsu in the Northern District of Texas; proposed consent order announced

Summary

Who: The Federal Trade Commission, together with the attorneys general of Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia, as plaintiffs; GroupM Worldwide LLC (d/b/a WPP Media), Publicis, Inc., and Dentsu US, Inc. as defendants. Omnicom and IPG are separately subject to a related FTC order.

What: A federal antitrust complaint and proposed consent order alleging that the three defendant advertising holding companies unlawfully conspired, beginning in 2018, to impose a common "Brand Safety Floor" across the digital advertising industry - a floor that categorically excluded certain conservative publishers from receiving advertising revenue under a shared "Misinformation" designation. The defendants have agreed to a proposed order that would permanently prohibit similar coordination.

When: The alleged conspiracy began in April 2018 with the formation of the APB. The "Misinformation" category was formally added to the Brand Safety Floor in June 2022. GARM dissolved in August 2024. The complaint and proposed consent order were filed on April 15, 2026.

Where: The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division (Case 4:26-cv-469). The alleged conduct took place primarily through the APB - operating under the 4As trade association in New York - and through GARM, which operated under the World Federation of Advertisers. The defendants maintain offices in New York, with additional offices in Texas establishing venue.

Why: The FTC argues that the agencies' agreement eliminated the competitive incentive for each firm to independently develop better, cheaper, and more targeted brand safety tools - the kind of competition that would have benefited advertisers. The agreement also, according to the complaint, demonetized lawful but politically disfavored content, specifically conservative news and opinion publishers, distorting the marketplace of ideas. The FTC further argues that without binding legal relief, the defendants could reconstitute similar coordination depending on where "political chips fall."

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