The corporation will allow the placement of ads for exchanges from Japan and the U.S. as well as licensed companies.
In October 2018, Google will update the rules for advertising financial services. The changes will affect ads related to cryptocurrencies. The сorporation will allow advertising to licensed blockchain projects and regulated exchanges from Japan and the U.S.
The company will have to pass a special certification for the country in which it will be allowed to place an ad. Applications will be accepted immediately after the new rules come into force. The corporation did not disclose the criteria for selecting ads and other details of the certification process.
“The Google Ads policy on Financial products and services will be updated in October 2018 to allow regulated cryptocurrency exchanges to advertise in the United States and Japan. Advertisers will need to be certified with Google for the specific country in which their ads will serve,” said the statement of the company.
At the moment, the company has a rule of certifying financial products that are allowed to advertise with restrictions. The main requirement for such ads is the permission of a local regulator and compliance with legal rules. The ban on advertising ICO and Google's cryptocurrency was first reported in March 2018. Similar rules were introduced by Facebook and Twitter, but Mark Zuckerberg's social network softened the rules in June, allowing ads to be pre-approved by companies.
Concern or unfair competition?
The wave of prohibitions on crypto advertising began this year. Sanctions dealt directly with digital money, ICO, virtual wallets, binary options, as well as any articles teaching trade using cryptocurrency. Such a decision by the corporation was explained by the fact that crypto advertising often misinforms people, forcing to make wrong decisions, and also can become an effective tool in the hands of scammers.
"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," Google's director of sustainable ads, Scott Spencer said.
However, many experts suspected Google of unfair competition and said that the ban on digital money advertising can be associated not only with protecting users from fraud. Crypto experts came to this conclusion because the company disclosed plans for the possible creation of its own cryptocurrency. In May Google even offered to work with the creator of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin. The programmer wrote about this in his Twitter account, but then deleted his post.
What features will be provided by Google's cryptocurrency is still unknown. The token has not yet been presented in the crypto community. However, many experts comment that the ban on advertising is part of unfair competition. For example, the head of investment company Blackmore Group, Philip Nun, was surprised that the corporation is blocking ads related to digital money, but it leaves advertising for gambling. "I suspect that Google has imposed a ban on plans to create its own cryptocurrency in the near future," he said. Google representatives declined to comment on the charges.