Ethereum Gets Blacklisted On Google? Cryptocurrency Firm Reports Issue With Google Ads


A few days ago, a Serbia-based Ethereum platform reported that its Ethereum ads were not displaying on Google in some regions. After investigating the issue, the company realized that Ethereum ads were banned by Google and were not displayed to users. Following the discovery, the company tried to contact Google for more information about Ethereum related ads. However, a representative of the company said that Google is yet to respond to their inquiries. In the representative’s words:


“For the past six months, we’ve been using Google ads for more visibility for smart contract auditing services that we offer our clients. However, for some days now, we’ve noticed that our ads are no longer displaying correctly. The keyword Ethereum has been blacklisted on Google. All the key phrases that contain the word Ethereum are not displaying correctly. They stopped displaying ads since the 9th of January.”


What Really Happened With Google And Ethereum

Right now, there are two possibilities. For starters, it’s possible that Google legitimately blacklisted all Ethereum based keywords from its platform for reasons it is yet to disclose. The second possibility is that that Google didn’t blacklist Ethereum based keywords but it is trying to be safe because of the prevalence of ICO related scams in the the beginning of the year 2018.


Ethereum (ETH) Price Today – BTC / USD
NamePrice24H %
ethereum
Ethereum(ETH)
$0.00-2.08%


Earlier in 2018, Google announced that it was restricting cryptocurrency related ads. However, the ban was lifted not long after. During the ban, Scott Spender, a Google executive had this to say about the ban:
“While we do not have an accurate understanding of cryptocurrencies, we have enough information about the potential harm users face in the industry. This is why we want to proceed with caution.”


The ban, according to analysts, was understandable and most likely due to the large inflow of cryptocurrency related scams that were promoted on Google. The company started allowing ads for limited, well-known cryptocurrency groups. The company stated that it would rigorously evaluate ads that are to be posted on its platform. They have also decided to permit only ads from a subset of the cryptocurrency industry.


The effect of this strict policy is going to be felt by the less known cryptocurrency based platforms in the industry. The more established agencies may not have a problem with these policies. This is because they are already known as legitimate platforms.


Google May Not Accept Many Ads anytime Soon


From the look of things, Google isn’t concerned about other cryptocurrency platforms. It is particularly concerned about Ethereum. Part of the report from the startup was as follows:“We are worried that Google is particularly concerned about the Ethereum blockchain and community for some reason we aren’t sure of. We want to find out if we can put some pressure on the team behind Google ads to adjust their keyword policy or at least explain why they decided to blacklist the keyword, Ethereum.”


The bottom line is that until Google gains confidence that it can comfortably distinguish fraudulent activities from legitimate ones, it is going to continue being strict about its cryptocurrency ad policies. In time, there may be a more sophisticated way of picking out these ads.

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