Scott Spencer, Google’s Director of Sustainable Ads, said in a blog post on that the company has “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).”
The new policies, whose implementation will kickoff in June, ban adverts for binary options and “cryptocurrencies and related content (including but not limited to initial coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and cryptocurrency trading advice).”
Google follows Facebook in banning cryptocurrency related advertising on its platform. Spencer said in his blog post that the crackdown is part of Google’s efforts to protect consumers from “online scams.”
Cryptocurrencies are now very popular today thanks to a surge in the price of bitcoin at the end of 2017. This coincided with a boom in so-called initial coin offerings (ICOs), where startups issue their own cryptocurrency in exchange for money to build their business.
However, the entire space is unregulated in most markets and has attracted scammers looking to make quick money.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, lost about 2 percent after Google’s announcement, trading little changed at $9,099.
