NewsGuard Technologies, Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission, et al.

NewsGuard is a private news organization that rates the reliability of news websites using apolitical and fully disclosed journalistic criteria. These ratings include whether news sites verify their information, regularly correct errors, and disclose ownership and financing, among other transparency metrics. NewsGuard’s ratings, which are agnostic to the political or editorial viewpoints of news sites, help readers, advertisers, and businesses make their own decisions about which online sources to trust.

But the Federal Trade Commission under Chairman Andrew Ferguson has targeted NewsGuard because officials—and some conservative outlets—dislike NewsGuard’s editorial judgments. In May 2025, the FTC issued to NewsGuard a sweeping Civil Investigative Demand demanding years of sensitive internal materials, including documents about NewsGuard’s ratings, methodology, editorial judgments, customers, subscribers, and communications. NewsGuard spent months trying to cooperate and produced more than 40,000 pages of documents, but the FTC continued to demand constitutionally protected material.

Then the FTC went further. As part of its approval of the merger of two of the largest global advertising agency holding companies—Omnicom and IPG—the Commission imposed a condition restricting the merged advertising giant from using services that evaluate news publishers based on “the veracity of news reporting” or “adherence to journalistic standards or ethics.” This language directly targets NewsGuard.

On February 6, 2026, NewsGuard sued the FTC and Chairman Ferguson, arguing that the agency’s actions violate the First Amendment by retaliating against NewsGuard for its perceived viewpoints. On February 11, NewsGuard filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, asking the court to halt the FTC’s unconstitutional campaign while the case proceeds.

On April 22, 2026, the court denied NewsGuard’s preliminary injunction motion without prejudice. NewsGuard has appealed that ruling to the D.C. Circuit.