Google Bans Crypto Ads: No Currencies, ICOs, Exchanges, Wallets, Advice

The largest search engine on the planet, Google, announced formally it will restrict advertisement of “Cryptocurrencies and related content (including but not limited to initial coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and cryptocurrency trading advice),” including aggregators and affiliates regarding “cryptocurrencies and related content.”

Also read: Québec Premier: We’re Not Really Interested in Bitcoin Mining

Google Crypto Ad Ban Confirmed

Just days ago, these pages published “anecdotal reports of several companies operating in the initial coin offering (ICO) industry, Google is taking steps to restrict the visibility of ICO advertising on its platforms.” As of March 13th, however, Google published Financial Services: New restricted financial products policy (June 2018), announcing it “will update the Financial services policy to restrict the advertisement of” cryptocurrencies and related content. The policy will be implemented by June of this year. By restrict, it appears some of those ads banned might be able to ultimately advertise with Google by getting certified.

To advertise through Adwords, advertisers will need to: “Be licensed by the relevant financial services authority in the country or countries they are targeting; Ensure their ads and landing pages comply with all Adwords policies; Comply with relevant legal requirements, including those related to complex speculative financial products; Advertisers can request certification with Google starting March 2018 when the application form is published. This policy will apply globally to all accounts that advertise these financial products.”

Their policy comes mere weeks after Facebook announced, as documented by News.Bitcoin.com, “As of a new ruling issued on January 30, ‘ads must not promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices, such as binary options, initial coin offerings, or cryptocurrency.’”

The economy for online advertisers is a competitive one, and Facebook/Google carve up the lion’s share of that market. Advertisers have long understood negative experiences with shady ads, malware driven links, and so forth sour user experience and thereby chip away at legitimate ads.

“Bad Ads” a Constant Problem

The search giant simultaneously released metrics for cleaning up its “bad ads” problem. Last year, they zapped more than three billion ads, almost twice that of 2016. “We blocked 79 million ads in our network for attempting to send people to malware-laden sites, and removed 400,000 of these unsafe sites last year. And, we removed 66 million ‘trick-to-click’ ads as well as 48 million ads that were attempting to get users to install unwanted software,” the company stressed.

“We’re constantly updating our policies,” the post explained, “as we see new threats emerge. Last year, we added 28 new advertiser policies and 20 new publisher policies to combat new threats and improve the ads experience online. This year, we updated several policies to address ads in unregulated or speculative financial products like binary options, cryptocurrency, foreign exchange markets and contracts for difference (or CFDs).”

Scoldingly, the post revealed, “Many website owners use our advertising platforms, like AdSense, to run Google ads on their sites and content and make money. We paid $12.6 billion to publishing partners in our ad network last year. But in order to make money from Google ads, you have to play by rules— that means respecting the user experience more than the ads.”

In 2017, the company closed-in on 100 billion USD in ad-related business, 20 percent more than the year prior. The danger for many crypto enthusiasts is with the influence Google has on the broader ecosystem. Many worry such a wide net cast might inadvertently scoop up crypto businesses and operations acting legitimately. 

What do you think about Google’s ban? Let us know in the comments!

Images via Pixabay, Google. 

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