Google points out its own ban will not come into effect until June this year. The company says it will prevent all cryptocurrency-related advertising. This will include wallets, coin platforms, and trade advice. The search giant relies on advertising for revenue, so shutting out an entire industry is a big move. Sure, cryptocurrency is still nascent, but it is becoming more influential. Google denying advertising could hamper that growth. In a release, the company says the ban will extend across all its products, including YouTube. How that will work for advertising videos remains to be seen. Google has wrapped its cryptocurrency ban in the wider new “restricted financial products policy”. Google is also banning advertising for aggregators and affiliates highlighting questionable financial tools, like binary options. Basically, the company says it is banning anything it deems as unsafe in terms of finance, including spread betting advertising. In terms of cryptocurrency, Google explains why it has placed the ban. “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,” Scott Spencer, Google’s director of sustainable ads, told CNBC.
Rounding on Digital Currency
The reasoning mirrors the same factors Facebook cited for its ban. Google says it has already removed a massive 3.2 billion ads that it deems as ban-worthy. The tech giants issued their bans the same month Microsoft founder Bill Gates slammed cryptocurrency. Gates said digital currencies has directly caused deaths. Speaking during a Reddit AMA, Bill Gates suggested “the government’s ability to find money laundering and tax evasion and terrorist funding is a good thing. “Right now cryptocurrencies are used for buying fentanyl and other drugs so it is a rare technology that has caused deaths in a fairly direct way.”
