Google to Block Cryptocurrency Ads

Technology

Published: March 14, 2018 6:26 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 2:27 am

Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google has announced it will no longer run cryptocurrency ads, expanding the number of categories that may no longer use the search engine for marketing. Given the huge scope of Google users, it is a blow to the emerging currency market.

Google’s Scott Spencer, its director of Sustainable Ads, wrote in a blog post:

We’re constantly updating our policies 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). We also updated our gambling ads policies to address new methods of gambling with items that have real-world value (e.g., skins gambling). And we will introduce a new certification process for rehabilitation facilities, allowing legitimate addiction treatment centers to connect with people in need.

The ongoing effort includes its ability to remove 100 “bad ads” per second. The number of ads affected is impressive:

In 2017, we took down more than 3.2 billion ads that violated our advertising policies. That’s more than 100 bad ads per second! This means we’re able to block the majority of bad ad experiences, like malvertising and phishing scams, before the scams impact people. 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.

Even with Google’s new programs, it may be impossible to entirely stop marketers who want to game the Google ad system. However, the scope of Google’s efforts is amazing.