The Federal Trade Commission could reportedly bar promoting giants Omnicom and Interpublic from suppressing ads to web sites over their political beliefs as a condition for approving their pending merger.
The FTC, led by President Trump-nominated chairman Andrew Ferguson, is considering imposing the consent decree because it engages in a broader effort to research and stop collusive ad boycotts that unfairly goal conservative media.
Latest York City-based Omnicom was amongst the businesses called out by House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) over its involvement with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a left-leaning promoting cartel that allegedly sought to defund news outlets and platforms, including The Post.
Jordan launched an investigation into Omnicom after the merger was first announced last December.
The FTC is currently reviewing a $13.25 billion all-stock deal between the 2 ad giants.
If approved, the combined entitles would form the biggest ad agency on the planet, with around $25 billion in annual revenue.
The terms of the merger deal are still under review and have yet to be finalized, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a source acquainted with the matter.
Representatives for the FTC, Omnicom and Interpublic didn’t immediately return The Post’s request for comment.
The FTC’s move points “to a rather more highly politicized environment for agencies than we now have ever seen before, no less than in the USA,” analyst Brian Wieser wrote in a midyear industry update on Tuesday that was cited by the Latest York Times, which first reported on the proposed consent decree.
Fergson has said that any boycotts organized by advertisers will be illegal because they involve coordinated refusals to do business, which can restrict competition.
Earlier this week, the FTC requested documents from top ad agencies, including Omnicon, Interpublic, WPP, Dentsu, Havas and Publicis, as a part of a broad review into whether the firms had violated antitrust law by participating in boycotts against certain news outlets.
The FTC can be targeting so-called watchdogs like Media Matters and Ad Fontes Media within the investigation and in May requested documents about their dealings with a dozen firms, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The probe is concentrated partially on how the firms handled Elon Musk’s X, which suffered a mass exodus of advertisers after the mogul bought the social media company formerly referred to as Twitter in 2022 and loosened its content moderation practices.
The agency’s letter to Media Matters requested “all documents that Media Matters either produced or received in discovery in any litigation between Media Matters and X Corp. related to advertiser boycotts since 2023.”
Last yr, Musk filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers and its now-defunct GARM initiative, which shut its doors after the suit was filed.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino told The Post on the time that your entire internet advertising ecosystem was “broken” consequently of the alleged boycotts.
“We were victimized by a small group of individuals pushing their authority or ability to monopolize what gets monetized,” Yaccarino said.
With Post wires
The Federal Trade Commission could reportedly bar promoting giants Omnicom and Interpublic from suppressing ads to web sites over their political beliefs as a condition for approving their pending merger.
The FTC, led by President Trump-nominated chairman Andrew Ferguson, is considering imposing the consent decree because it engages in a broader effort to research and stop collusive ad boycotts that unfairly goal conservative media.
Latest York City-based Omnicom was amongst the businesses called out by House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) over its involvement with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a left-leaning promoting cartel that allegedly sought to defund news outlets and platforms, including The Post.
Jordan launched an investigation into Omnicom after the merger was first announced last December.
The FTC is currently reviewing a $13.25 billion all-stock deal between the 2 ad giants.
If approved, the combined entitles would form the biggest ad agency on the planet, with around $25 billion in annual revenue.
The terms of the merger deal are still under review and have yet to be finalized, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a source acquainted with the matter.
Representatives for the FTC, Omnicom and Interpublic didn’t immediately return The Post’s request for comment.
The FTC’s move points “to a rather more highly politicized environment for agencies than we now have ever seen before, no less than in the USA,” analyst Brian Wieser wrote in a midyear industry update on Tuesday that was cited by the Latest York Times, which first reported on the proposed consent decree.
Fergson has said that any boycotts organized by advertisers will be illegal because they involve coordinated refusals to do business, which can restrict competition.
Earlier this week, the FTC requested documents from top ad agencies, including Omnicon, Interpublic, WPP, Dentsu, Havas and Publicis, as a part of a broad review into whether the firms had violated antitrust law by participating in boycotts against certain news outlets.
The FTC can be targeting so-called watchdogs like Media Matters and Ad Fontes Media within the investigation and in May requested documents about their dealings with a dozen firms, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The probe is concentrated partially on how the firms handled Elon Musk’s X, which suffered a mass exodus of advertisers after the mogul bought the social media company formerly referred to as Twitter in 2022 and loosened its content moderation practices.
The agency’s letter to Media Matters requested “all documents that Media Matters either produced or received in discovery in any litigation between Media Matters and X Corp. related to advertiser boycotts since 2023.”
Last yr, Musk filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers and its now-defunct GARM initiative, which shut its doors after the suit was filed.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino told The Post on the time that your entire internet advertising ecosystem was “broken” consequently of the alleged boycotts.
“We were victimized by a small group of individuals pushing their authority or ability to monopolize what gets monetized,” Yaccarino said.
With Post wires
