Google is revising its advertising policy so that cryptocurrency wallets can advertise using Google. The new policy will come into effect starting August 3rd provided that the companies are either registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network or a federal or state-chartered bank entity. The policy will be applicable globally.
Google banned all crypto-related advertisements in 2018. However, five months after taking this stance, the tech giant revised some of its policies allowing Coinbase to advertise in the US and Japan. Although the new policy will allow cryptocurrency exchange advertisements, ads for initial coin offerings (ICOs), decentralized finance (Defi) trading protocols, or promotions of specific cryptocurrencies are not permitted under the new policy.
Google has charted out a list indicating the clauses for not being considered financial services:
“Ads related to the following categories will not be considered financial services for the purposes of this policy but are still required to comply with all other Google Ads policies:
Products in the scope of our Debt services policy.
Products in the scope of our Complex speculative financial products policy: contracts for difference, rolling spot forex, financial spread betting. Ads for this category will be able to target UK users seeking financial services as long as they meet the requirements of our Complex speculative financial products policy and complete verification if requested by Google.
Gambling (see our Gambling and Games policy)
Products in the scope of our Cryptocurrencies, Credit repair, and Binary options policies.”
The Google Support page also mentions that the violation of this policy will lead to account suspension after a 7-days warning.
In 2018, Facebook too had banned all ads promoting cryptocurrencies but a few months later had a change of heart and edited the policy to allow ads from certain cryptocurrency services. Some experts believe that Google’s revision of policies will propel other companies to revisit and revise their policies on cryptocurrency ads too.
