The Federal Trade Commission could reportedly bar advertising giants Omnicom and Interpublic from suppressing ads to websites over their political views as a condition for approving their pending merger.
The FTC, led by President Trump-nominated chairman Andrew Ferguson, is considering imposing the consent decree as it engages in a broader effort to investigate and stop collusive ad boycotts that unfairly target conservative media.
New York City-based Omnicom was among the companies called out by House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) over its involvement with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a left-leaning advertising 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 two ad giants.
If approved, the combined entitles would form the largest ad agency in the world, 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 familiar with the matter.
Representatives for the FTC, Omnicom and Interpublic did not immediately return The Post’s request for comment.
The FTC’s move points “to a much more highly politicized environment for agencies than we have ever seen before, at least in the United States,” analyst Brian Wieser wrote in a midyear industry update on Tuesday that was cited by the New York Times, which first reported on the proposed consent decree.
Fergson has said that any boycotts organized by advertisers can be illegal because they involve coordinated refusals to do business, which may restrict competition.
Earlier this week, the FTC requested documents from top ad agencies, including Omnicon, Interpublic, WPP, Dentsu, Havas and Publicis, as part of a broad review into whether the firms had violated antitrust law by participating in boycotts against certain news outlets.
The FTC is also targeting so-called watchdogs like Media Matters and Ad Fontes Media in the investigation and in May requested documents about their dealings with a dozen firms, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The probe is focused in part on how the firms dealt with Elon Musk’s X, which suffered a mass exodus of advertisers after the mogul bought the social media company formerly known 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 year, 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 at the time that the entire online advertising ecosystem was “broken” as a result of the alleged boycotts.
“We were victimized by a small group of people pushing their authority or ability to monopolize what gets monetized,” Yaccarino said.
With Post wires
