Just a few hours ago, Google announced their updated Financial products and services policy, which stated their plan to reverse their blanket ban on cryptocurrency-related ads. However, things aren’t back to the way they used to be just yet.
Let’s go back to the reason why Google banned cryptocurrency ads in the first place. It was in March this year that Google announced their hard line approach which was to ban crypto-related advertising including but not limited to Initial Coin Offerings (ICO), cryptocurrency wallets, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency trading advice.
According to Google’s executive Scott Spencer, they are unsure of cryptocurrency’s long term potential but the short-term damage is what made the $828 billion company decide to prohibit its promotion on their platform. “We don’t have a crystal ball to know where the future is going to go with cryptocurrencies, but we’ve seen enough consumer harm or potential for consumer harm that it’s an area that we want to approach with extreme caution.”
Furthermore, the shift in policy was not unjustified either as there were 3.2 billion “bad ads” taken down in 2017 alone for violating Google’s advertising policies in which crypto ads were a major part of. Although it was announced in March, the blanket ban started on June.
The ban reversal (effective on October) was motivated by the heavy criticism on Google’s change in policy as well as Facebook’s initiation to reverse their similar blanket ban.
Among those that criticized Google was Philip Nunn, the CEO of a Real Estate Investment Fund Blackmore Group. “I understand that Facebook and Google are under a lot of pressure to regulate what their users are reading, but they are still advertising gambling websites and other unethical practices,” Nunn said.
Despite the search engine giant’s aim to prevent Ponzi schemes and crypto-related scams, legitimate business like crypto exchanges and wallets were also prevented from running Google ads. “Unfortunately, the fact that this ban is a blanket ban will mean that legitimate cryptocurrency businesses which provide valuable services to users will be unfairly caught in the crossfire,” Nunn added.
Facebook initiated the first blanket ban on crypto ads and was also the first to reverse it. Back in June, Facebook announced that they would allow certain types of cryptocurrency-related ads to run on their platform. In addition, some Redditors were able to spot Coinbase ads running on Google Adwords last July. However, Google made no announcements of any change of policies at that time. It is unknown how it happened or if Google was aware beforehand.
Set to begin on October, the ban reversal will still have some limitations. Unlike what most people are likely expecting, only regulated exchanges are allowed to advertise with Google and they can only run it on Japan and United States. Exchanges [need to be certified with Google for the specific country] their ads will be displayed. However, Google may allow companies to file applications to publish their ads in other countries. CCN reports that that it is expected evolve into an international reverse ban on crypto ads.
It’s not the same as before the ban but we have reason to believe it could be better. Very soon, Google will be manually approving crypto-related ads. This will help sift through the gems and the scams which would tremendously benefit crypto investors.
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