New York, USA.- X, formerly Twitter, filed a federal antitrust lawsuit Tuesday against a coalition of advertising industry members including CVS Health, Mars, Orsted and Unilever, alleging the group abused its influence over marketers and advertising agencies to unfairly discriminate against the social media company, prompting an advertising boycott.
The lawsuit, cited by Axios, is part of a broader effort by conservative lawmakers and media companies to go after GARM, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media.
GARM was created by members of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) in 2019 to set standards around brand safety for digital advertisers. Members include major technology companies, advertisers, agencies, ad tech companies and advertising coalitions.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, alleges that GARM “conspired, along with dozens of unindicted co-conspirators, to collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue from Twitter Inc (“now X Corp).”
A copy of the lawsuit alleges that GARM triggered “a massive advertiser boycott” when it relayed to its members concerns about Twitter, now X, complying with its standards after Musk acquired the platform in 2022.
“All of these actions ran counter to the advertisers’ unilateral self-interest; they made economic sense only in support of a conspiracy undertaken in the confidence that competing advertisers were doing the same,” the complaint reads.
In an open letter to advertisers on Tuesday, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said that “GARM’s behavior is a stain on a great industry and cannot be allowed to continue.”
“It is also clear that there are likely others who suffered at the hands of this activity. This case is about more than damages – we need to fix a broken ecosystem that allows this illegal activity to occur,” he added.
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