
Google bans cryptocurrency ads - em3rgent0rdr
https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/7648803
======
robotbikes
I was listening to terrestrial radio the other day and was surprised to hear a
radio advertisement beckoning retirees to cash in their 401ks to join the
cryptocurrency future of Bitcoin and Ethereum. The bubble is too big for
Google to slow it down and it has grown beyond the realm of tech savvy geeks
into something fueled by hype and hubris.

~~~
chx
From the best tweetstorm ever on topic by Sarah Jeong:

[https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/953464303960469504](https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/953464303960469504)

> All of this has gone too far!!!!! It was fine when you paranoid dorks were
> out there scamming each other, please leave the normies alone!!!!!!!!!!!

~~~
Mithorium
All her tweets on the subject are great

>Internet rando 2: What about people who live under oppressed governments with
unsound currency

>Me: Only if the problem with their currency is that it's not volatile enough
and the transaction speeds are too fast

>"People are sick of the Federal Reserve, sick of bailouts, sick of inflation.
You know what we need? Internet money with the usability of PGP and the
stability of BART service"

~~~
n_
I loved this tweetstorm, but I must say, it's never taken me weeks to take a
BART trip, but it's definitely taken me weeks to clear a BTC transaction.

Like hey, BART isn't _that_ bad.

------
edent
Good. I accidentally turned off my ad-blocker a few days ago. Almost all the
ads I saw were variants on "Be paid for using your phone - download our app to
mine crypto!"

I've worked in ad-tech. Part of the problem is the scale is too large for
advertising networks to check all the adverts. If you run a newspaper, you get
to see and approve the ads before running with them.

Online, at best, an advertising network might see the initial ad & landing
page, but then it is rapidly changed once live.

~~~
giarc
After Facebook announced it would stop crypto adverts I continued to see them
for quite a while.

Facebook detects text in ads and will alert you when there is too much. I
imagine it also reads that text and therefore would be quite easy to auto flag
ads with "ICO" "Crypto" "Coin" in them.

------
_aeneas
I believe this to be a good decision. Investment should not be driven by
advertisement but by facts. In my experience, any investment advertisement
tying to appeal to mass audiences is fraud. This is no different for
cryptocurrencies and reminds me of the penny stock scams.

~~~
wccrawford
I feel the same way about prescription drugs. Those are for doctors to
prescribe, not for patients to request.

~~~
briandear
Going to disagree with you. Doctors often have incentives to prescribe certain
drugs over others that aren’t necessarily the best drug. If it’s legal to
advertise to physicians then it should be legal to advertise to consumers.
Ultimately the consumer is in charge of their own health and should have a say
in their drug choices.

Let’s think of another industry — tires. Is a consumer typically an automotive
engineer or a mechanic? Then why should it be legal to advertise tires to
consumers? Ultimately a mechanic will have to install the tires. However, that
certainly shouldn’t preclude a consumer making their preferences known. With
meds, a doctor can always say no — and they should and do if it isn’t
indicated for the particular affliction.

The idea that consumers need to be shielded from information is a bit weird to
me.

~~~
moate
Flagged for an egregious false equivalency. To pretend that the basic
understanding of a tire and it's function and a understanding of the
mechanisms of most prescription drugs is a stretch that will tear the fabric
of credibility.

"This is a good tire, it will last longer than most and will serve you well.
It is highly unlikely to interfere with any other parts of your car"

VS.

"This is a enzyme inhibitor that will degrade the signalling molecule cyclic
guanosine monophosphate which will prevent smooth muscle relaxation. It could
have unforeseen interactions with any number of different commonly imbibed
chemicals."

~~~
logfromblammo
Or even something like

"We don't even know about all the things this molecule could do inside your
body, but one of the things we do know about turns out to be pretty useful,
and so we have made an arrangement with the physicians cartel. You have to pay
one of them to monitor your individual situation to make it less likely you
die or suffer some horribly grievous injury. In exchange, they will absorb
some of our product liability for the most frequent and least severe side
effects. This is usually a win-win-win, but sometimes it's just win-win for us
and the physicians and a loss for you."

When you want to pump people full of newly developed and recently tested
chemicals, you do need someone capable of reading and understanding the
publications of medical studies, and keeping track of all the recommendations
published by the professional association. Auto mechanics do have a similar,
less extensive sort of training in that they need to do the same kind of thing
with service bulletins, but tire maintenance is one of those things that
anyone with the right tool can do, like changing oil and filters or replacing
brake pads.

Knowing what cryptocurrency is right for you is even simpler than that. None
of them are. Even the very first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is still essentially
in beta release, and not suitable for consumption by the general public.
Anyone who can't or won't admit that the technology is not yet ready for wide-
scale adoption is selling you vapor, and will probably run off with your
money, leaving you with a bag of wooden nickels. That's why the ads are coming
down. Every last one of them is a fraud, like the snake-oil panaceas of
unregulated frontier pharmacologists that were pretty much just booze and
opioids.

------
tobiaswk
Good. The amount of crazy ICO's I've seen is staggering. Most of them are
surely scams in some sense. Reddit is filled with them.

~~~
iamben
What I think is most bizarre - I have friends with really decent businesses
that try really, really hard to get a few hundred thousand in funding. And yet
I see the most _terrible_ ideas with an ICO cap of 20 million dollars. Still
people throw in the cash. Ideas with literally no need for a blockchain. But
"everyone will be able to spend the token on [insert terrible idea]!"

'The most bespoke electric hypercar! With blockchain!'
[http://www.arrinera.io/](http://www.arrinera.io/) \- I mean really?! I heard
someone talking about "LGBT on the blockchain" the other day - "We'll aim for
a conservative $40million ICO." Ridiculous.

~~~
Aunche
How much money is actually raised during ICOs? Market cap is based on marginal
pricing, so it's completely meaningless in a cryptocurrency.

~~~
brightball
I always wonder who actually validates the money when somebody says they
raised $20 mil in a private ICO. What keeps people from just claiming that to
make other investors more willing and give an appearance of legitimacy?

------
mancerayder
Did Google ban all scam ads out there? Is predatory lending banned? How about
magical thinking supplements, systems, and other scams?

Also, wallets? What did the crypto wallet makers do wrong?

This, my friends, is monopoly capitalism at its finest; when corporate
interests are threatened they come down on information exchange, which means
they can disappear products. And since it's privately owned and not state
owned, everyone's okay with it morally. Because cryptocurrency is naughty.

Let's ban drug discussion, too, it's naughty. How about hate speech, let's
disappear search results for that. Who needs Big Brother when a massive
surveillance apparatus that, quite frankly, is a headache to avoid (although I
use duckduckgo and Firefox for all non tech stuff) can also disappear ideas
and products without a popular vote or accountability?

One plus of all this is I won't have to see the Crypto Genius Reveals Next
Bitcoin ad with the pic of the guy staring off in the distance in crooked
glasses. Always hated that one.

~~~
warent
Are you proposing that an ad for a placebo is as damaging as an ad encouraging
people to gamble their life savings (bonus: on what may be nothing more than a
pump and dump scheme)?

As an aside, I'm not sure what drug discussion or hate speech has to do with
this at all.

~~~
mancerayder
_Peter Hetherington, chief executive of IG Group, Europe’s largest retail
trading website, said consumers would be “more likely to end up with reputable
brokers and proper regulatory protection” following the changes.

But he warned that there were wider implications for financial services,
saying: “Big American tech companies are increasingly influential in deciding
how financial services products are marketed. This is fine if they get to the
right answer . . . but a worrying precedent if they do not, since the normal
checks and balances do not apply to their decisions.”_

("Google to ban cryptocurrency adverts", _Financial Times_ , March 15, 2018)

------
marcrosoft
I support the ability for Google to make this decision but we should not be
celebrating this as a good thing. Instead, it should strike fear. Google has a
disproportionate amount of influence through its ads and cannot act in the
best interest of all individuals.

~~~
gowld
The harms deriving from the possibility of doing bad must be balanced against
the harms deriving from unwillingness to do good. Allowing toxic ads should
strike fear as well, that browsing online is an unsafe "back alley" full of
scams.

------
wastedhours
Since Facebook banned them I've seen a surge in them on Twitter. Will be
interesting to see what they do, and whether it contributes anything
meaningful to their profit situation.

I'm actually glad Google are (at least for the time being). Whilst rogue ICOs
and crypto-pumpers are still working their stuff, the market is much more akin
to back-street gambling and since there are already regs on AdWords for
unsavoury ads, this fits the bill.

~~~
ungzd
I see lots of ICO ads on Instagram, which uses Facebook's ad network. Probably
they banned them only on Facebook, not in their ad network completely, or just
lots of ads left unbanned.

Also lots of russian money scam ads posted from temporary accounts, this may
be explanation why ICOs aren't banned too: they ban, but new ads are posted
again and again.

~~~
oculusthrift
i always see the scammiest ads on instagram (free yeezy'z)

------
whataretensors
We've created a generation of people who will do anything they are told to do.
Now these big corps and governments feel like they have to baby-proof the
world because we've created a bunch of lemmings who will give all their money
to an ICO because a banner told them to.

~~~
wslh
> we've created a bunch of lemmings who will give all their money to an ICO
> because a banner told them to.

It is a problem of basic finance education which should be part of the school
curriculum. People also buy a lot of stuff they don't need or include false
claims because a banner told them to.

~~~
jrwiegand
I was just saying this the other day. I have been a steep learning curve about
retirement accounts, mortgages, etc. There should really be a financial
curriculum in high school, possibly all four years. This is basic information
that everyone should be aware of.

~~~
oculusthrift
isn't there some personal responsibility to teach yourself these things and
not be stupid? Why do government funded schools have to teach people
everything? And what subject will we cut to teach these things?

~~~
CaptSpify
Couldn't that same argument be used against anything we currently teach in
school?

The obvious answer to your first question is: It has severe detrimental
effects to our society, and we'd all be better off if people were taught the
basics.

------
krrrh
Finally James Altucher can go back to doing what he does best.

~~~
chabes
Underrated comment.

------
BenGosub
Why only mention cryptocurrencies in the title? There are other financial
products listed...

~~~
aje403
"Advertisers offering Contracts for Difference, rolling spot forex, and
financial spread betting will be required to be certified by Google before
they can advertise through AdWords. Certification is only available in certain
countries."

This isn't rocket science:

"Hey, we shouldn't be supporting cryptocurrency advertisement any more, this
could lead to trouble for us in the upcoming year and may be unethical"

"Why don't we take a look at all risky financial products that aren't easily
understood but are marketed at layman investors"

"Great idea!"

"Definitely let's leave binary options out with cryptocurrencies, but we'll
just leave in stricter controls for financial products which aren't complete
scams"

~~~
ellisv
Sounds like the opposite way FB handled Russian paid political ads for the US
election.

------
blondie9x
About time. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6iDZspbRMg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6iDZspbRMg)

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Another talking parrot head.

------
api
I'm really interested in cryptocurrencies and excited about their future, but
I'm disgusted by their use as a platform for scams. I'm afraid that I support
this, and I really wish people in the cryptocurrency community would do more
to educate people about scams.

Of course I suppose it's futile. Once this kind of mania takes off it takes on
a life of its own.

~~~
loceng
Are you interested in crypto-assets if they're not structured like a Pyramid-
Ponzi scheme, where wealth is redistributed weighted towards the earlier
adopters - or are you excited about the potential of blockchains?

We already have currencies that worldwide could be transferred to a blockchain
crypto-asset structure via governments destroying money ('take out' of
traditional circulation) to put onto an immutable digital blockchain ledger,
as opposed to someone receiving currency of choice in exchange (E.g. I give
you this digital thing you call a 'coin', and you give me $1 USD).

If the main value is truly in the decentralized and immutable ledger aspects,
then its use can eventually be State/government-mandated, instead of gaining
collaboration through unreasonably incentivizing its adoption, no?

------
halamadrid
Finally, some sense of responsibility kicks in.

Another platform is LinkedIn, where I have been getting a ton of invites from
"Blockchain Experts", "ICO Experts" whom I have never heard of. Some of my
connections are connected to them but I think that's more of a blind "Accept".

If you connect, I've noticed they immediately start promoting coins or ICO.
Massive scam going on here. Hope LinkedIn bans these fake promotions too.

~~~
nkrisc
Hard to know if they're even real people or just bot-driven accounts.

------
Legogris
> Cryptocurrencies and related content (including but not limited to initial
> coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and
> cryptocurrency trading advice)

The question here is where they draw the line. What about tools, software and
services around the ecosystem but not promoting any particular cryptocurrency
or related to trading?

I can see how it makes sense for them to block wallet ads for now seeing just
how many forked scamwallets buy ads for e.g. MyEtherWallet to trick users into
giving them their keys.

However, there are a growing number of companies offering services and
products for the business sector that could get seriously affected by this.

As an example, it's clear that they won't ban HyperLedger consultants
(HyperLedger is a blockchain platform without a cryptocurrency), but how about
Ethereum consultants?

How about SDK vendors?

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Because people here are uninformed and the ad ban was on phishing ads not ico
related stuff.

------
m3kw9
Probably they found 90% of the ads are frauds or just plain fraud like in
their proposed amount you will gain from buying the said cryptos. Bitcoin
would not need advertisement for example.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Nah it was more targeted at phishing scams.

------
rdlecler1
I find it interesting that this seems to be negatively affecting the blue chip
coins. One might think that less competition would drive investors to them,
not away.

~~~
orthecreedence
It's almost as if the cryptocurrency markets are completely irrational and
have magnitudes less value in them than their market caps claim to, and on top
of this are pumped up even further by scammers printing fake money (Tether) to
bolster the prices. Almost...

That said, I don't think the price dives have anything at all to do with
advertising, and more to do with the fact that the bubble is slowly deflating.

------
traviscj
More discussion at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16582266](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16582266),
though it is interesting to hear it straight from the Google's mouth.

------
wslh
Does this include software services related to cryptoasseta?

~~~
dgut
As somebody in the process of building a "cryptoasseta" app - I wonder that
too.

------
samstave
ELI5: why does the world need a larger number of cryptocurrencies vs fewer/one
instead?

(I’m not holding any position, I just want to understand the logic for either
case)

~~~
coatmatter
Going off-topic, but I want to ask whether writing "ELI5" is really necessary?
I find it too much of a redditism and while it doesn't seem to contravene any
hn guidelines, I get the feeling that "simple" questions would garner a better
audience without the ELI5 prefix. There's perhaps also the problem of it being
an unnecessary abbreviation, specific to another community.

Alternatives (even though it takes more keystrokes) could be along the lines
of "pardon my ignorance", "I'm new to this" or even simply "can someone
explain". I bet these would receive just as good (if not better) responses.

Anyone agree or disagree?

~~~
asdsa5325
I think you are overthinking it entirely

~~~
coatmatter
That could well be true, so I thought I'd throw it out there to check if I was
(comparatively) the only one who isn't really a fan of "ELI5".

So the other alternative is to have more ELI5 prefixes for questions. It's
something I never question on reddit since that's where it has orginated and
flourished, but since this is hacker news I figured it'd be safer to overthink
than underthink.

~~~
samstave
Y’all motherfuckers best overthink on hack her news

That’s what I always say...

But seriously - we need a method for which is accepted where individuals can
ask elementary questions for topics they have less knowledge than an expert in
the field.

Thus, I think that “ELI5” encapsulates this.

What I am opposed to is suppression of sharing knowledge. So don’t shut people
who use a moniker/meme from gaining the info they seek. Educate them and
expand.

So, if you have some better way of expressing “ __ _Hey I don’t know anything
about this subject, please give me some simple pointers, thanks”+_ __

Edit: I just realized we said the same thing

------
saikiranmc
Thank god oh no, actually thanks to Google. I don't have to see stupid Youtube
cryptocurrency video ads which are mostly FAKE and a waste of time.

------
wslh
It is interesting to note that OTOY will launch RNDR (Render Token) [1] in
Ethereum and their advisory board includes Eric Schmidt from Google [2].

[1] [https://rendertoken.com/](https://rendertoken.com/)

[2] [https://home.otoy.com/advisory-board/](https://home.otoy.com/advisory-
board/)

------
nym
Facebook: Hey everyone! No more cryptocurrency ads.

Google: We're banning them too.

Big Pharma: But not us right?

Google: No, we appreciate your business...

Facebook: How much are you looking to spend??

~~~
jhwang5
Dumb comparison. At least medicine heals people.

------
bitwize
Now if only they would ban the 50-second, unskippable, "legal steroid" ads
that are popping onto YouTube...

------
an4rchy
I wonder how much of current ad revenue (Google/FB) is coming from
cryptocurrency related companies and how this might negatively impact their
earnings.

However, it may be a small amount or they both factored this change into their
forecasting before announcements.

~~~
Jesus_Jones
google is way too big for this to matter.

~~~
an4rchy
After reading about the timeframe, I now think this might be a reason they are
blocking ads starting in June, if something is bad, why not stop now, instead
of at the start of a new quarter. (when these ads may have likely scammed
people for a few more months)

------
mic47
Well, that explain the bunny token ad I was seeing 1 hour ago :-) On serious
note, it will take some time to implement.

I am actually glad they did it. This should make it harder for ponzi-like
schemes to get traction, so hopefully, it will make price less volatile.

------
hkmurakami
I remember being appalled that Japanese subway cars had FX trading ads
targeted towards retail "investors" as a fun and easy to make some money. I
hope that this hasn't proliferated to cryptocurrencies as well.

------
dorianm
Does it mean I can't advertise the points project on Google?
[https://pointsproject.org](https://pointsproject.org)

------
intrasight
I thought it was a fad that had already passed. I'm sort of surprised to see
this level of discussion about cryptocurrency.

------
narrator
Now all the alt-right and conspiracy bloggers who got kicked off of adwords
will have something to advertise.

------
pmarreck
ICO = IPO without all those pesky regulations and gated access.

Which is both good and bad, of course.

~~~
orthecreedence
No, it's just bad. It's the stupidest thing ever. ICOs are so incredibly
stupid that it's mind boggling.

"Hey, give us $50,000 and we'll give you a token that will hopefully be worth
10x once we dupe a bunch of other suckers like you! If you're _really, really
lucky_ we'll build something marginally useful and might even use that token
you bought to power it! Now you can use your $50,000 in tokens to power a
decentralized photo sharing app that you could have gotten for free by just
using google drive! Woww!"

------
martin1975
I guess this means no XRP/Ripple ads, a company Google has heavily invested
in?

------
iamandrebulatov
Google doesn't allow ads for legal medical cannabis or headshops.

------
wxyyxc1992
The bubble is too big, dont be evil

------
a3n
(cynicism) Can we now assume that Google will be getting into cryptocurrencies
in some way in the medium future?(/cynicism)

------
DimitarIbra9
google has right to do this but I do think this is a bad move. Filtering and
censoring is opposite to what google claimed what they were doing.

------
arisAlexis
google lost the blockchain race..

------
campuscodi
Good riddance!

Source for statement:
[http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2018/02/coinhoarder.html](http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2018/02/coinhoarder.html)

------
beiller
Google also shut down my google cloud Compute Engine server without notice, as
I tried to run a mining pool. "Mining" is against their TOS (wasn't mining).
Wonderful future. Moving to Amazon works fine for now...

~~~
urda
Was it a free account, I'm betting it was a free account because:

> Customer may not use the Services to engage in mining cryptocurrency;

~~~
beiller
No it wasn't. I was paying for a large VM $200 / month. Also I'm paying for
their managed Postgres.

------
andrebu
Google doesn't even allow ads for _legal, medical_ cannabis or headshops.

~~~
mthoms
Nor tobacco, firearms or alcohol as I understand it.

------
taneq
1\. Sell all your bitcoins.

2\. Ban advertising on (one of?) the largest online advertising platform(s).

3\. Wait for bitcoin to crash.

4\. Buy bitcoins again.

5\. Profit!

~~~
orthecreedence
> Wait for bitcoin to crash.

Don't need to do any manipulation at all for that to happen.

------
mrhappyunhappy
As always the typical hn reader is completely oblivious to the actual reasons
why Google banned crypto related ads. For those who don't know, phishing has
been plaguing Google ads and that is likely their primary reason for doing
away with crypto ads, NOT because it has anything to do with ICOs. But why
bother preaching it to the wrong choir... You guys know everything here.

------
John_KZ
I hate scams myself, but what gives google the right to judge on this matter?
Shouldn't they be following the guidelines of local governments?

~~~
yani
They are a service provider and can decide what to allow and disallow on their
platform.

