Global Disinformation Index

X settles multiyear lawsuit with WFA

X Corp and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) announced on July 29, 2026 that they have settled a multiyear antitrust dispute stemming from X’s August 2024 lawsuit. X alleged the WFA, its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and several major advertisers coordinated a boycott that diverted ad spend from X and deprived it of revenue. A federal judge in Texas dismissed the case on March 26, 2026 for failure to show the required antitrust injury; X appealed. The WFA discontinued GARM on August 9, 2024 and said it will not re-form a similar initiative. In a joint statement the parties said they are putting the litigation behind them, removing legal uncertainty while expressing interest in pursuing new brand-safety approaches.

FTC Probe Expands to Include Integral Ad Science

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has expanded a June 2025 investigation into alleged advertiser boycotts of conservative news to include ad‑verification firm Integral Ad Science (IAS), according to legal filings from the Global Disinformation Index (GDI). The expansion was first reported by Adweek. The FTC has issued Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs) seeking years of internal records from brand‑safety and media‑rating firms. Targeted organizations including GDI, Media Matters and NewsGuard have filed lawsuits arguing the inquiry is political retaliation; a federal court granted Media Matters a preliminary injunction that temporarily halts the probe into its operations. The development widens regulatory scrutiny of ad‑quality and brand‑safety practices and raises antitrust and free‑speech questions for the adtech ecosystem.

15% Ad Spend Wasted on Low-Visibility Sites

A study by Ebiquity and Scope3 estimates that about 15% of online advertising spend goes to “made-for-advertising” websites, which clutter screens with ads and host low-quality content that may be pirated or AI-generated. This misallocation leads to a large carbon footprint with little ROI, based on carbon estimates for 116 billion ad impressions over the past two years. The footprint per 1,000 impressions is 52% lower on trusted news sites verified by the Global Disinformation Index. The piece cites Good-Loop’s finding that a typical online campaign emits 5.4 tons of carbon, and notes that 61% of brand marketers would spend more to improve sustainability. The article advocates factoring carbon into media planning and reallocating spend to low-carbon publishers and high-quality journalism, citing comments from Ruben Schreurs of Ebiquity and Mikko Kotila of Cavai on reducing waste and cleaning up supply chains.