Google has announced that they will be implementing a ban on all advertisements concerning cryptocurrencies.
The ban will stop all Bitcoin advertising as well as other cryptocurrencies and popular initial coin offerings (ICOs). The new ban from Google will take effect from June 2018 and is seen as a way to combat an emerging threat in the ad ecosystem.
In a statement, Scott Spencer, Google's director of sustainable ads said
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)
Google Issues Blanket Ban On Cryptocurrency Industry
Google's ban includes just not cryptocurrencies themselves but associated services like cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets. Besides the cryptocurrency ban, Google will also be blocking certain gambling advertisements. This ban specifically targets ads for services that use virtual items as equivalent to real money.
This crackdown on cryptocurrency advertisements follows a similar ban by Facebook. Facebook banned these ads since many con artists and scam investors were using the popular social media platform to lure unsuspecting investors. Both Google and Facebook are giants in the advertising world and this move significantly reduces the advertising space that cryptocurrency players use to raise their profile.
Wochit News
Ban Issued To Combat Fraud And Scam Artists
Scam artists and fraudsters have used Google ads to promote their services and scam thousands of individuals in recent months. ICOs have been used to generate millions. Some of these ICO’s are genuine but there are also quite a few that raise funds and then just disappear. Google ads have been used in the past to promote both ICOs and the growing bitcoin market.
Google is looking to make changes to its advertising offerings to ensure that it removes offensive, intrusive and harmful advertisements. This move will definitely hurt genuine bitcoin traders and exchanges but Google decided to take the decision as it was in the best interest of its users. Google’s crackdown on bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry at large caused bitcoin value to decline further. Bitcoin’s value was close to $8800 at the start of the week and has now dropped to $7,800 after Google’s announcement.
Google has been very strict with advertisements during the last few years. In 2017, 3.2 billion advertisements were blocked by the search engine. This is mostly from reports of bad ad experiences, which includes phishing scams and negative ads.
