GARM capitulates in the face of antitrust scrutiny

Earlier this week social media platforms X and Rumble announced they were suing GARM and it’s parent organisation the World Federation of Advertisers. The essence of their complaint was that these organisations had coordinated advertiser boycotts of them, which they contend is illegal activity. This assertion was supported by recent criticism from US lawmakers.

Most commentators considered this to be a weak and baseless case on the grounds that you can’t force people to advertise anywhere they don’t want to, but they were missing the point. The real issue was the arbitrary power these often-competing brands had granted themselves through their group behaviour, effectively holding all ad-funded businesses to ransom.

It seems the WFA’s lawyers didn’t need long to conclude the complainants had a point, as GARM soon announced that it will discontinue its activities. After a couple of paragraphs of self-justification, the announcement concluded “GARM is a small, not-for-profit initiative, and recent allegations that unfortunately misconstrue its purpose and activities have caused a distraction and significantly drained its resources and finances. GARM therefore is making the difficult decision to discontinue its activities.”

Yeah, sure. GARM counted many of the world’s biggest brands among its members, who could have easily bankrolled a legal defence if they wanted to. Furthermore, if it’s true that GARM coordinated advertiser boycotts, it’s hard to see how they will prove that their activities have been misconstrued.

“No small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized,” tweeted X CEO Linda Yaccarino, in response to a House Judiciary GOP tweet celebrating the capitulation. “This is an important acknowledgement and a necessary step in the right direction. I am hopeful that it means ecosystem-wide reform is coming.” Musk has yet to tweet on the development, apparently prioritising his war of words with the UK Labour Party.

The ultimate irony is the probability that GARM members bravely ran away because they feared the damage a high-profile legal case would do to their brands. Business Insider reports that they will still contest the allegations and 40 of them are still subject to extensive discovery by the congressional committee on the judiciary. So, by the time this process plays out, it seems likely that their collective ‘brand safety’ initiatives will have caused net harm to those precious brands.