Google recently announced an update to its advertising policy. Starting in October, the massive tech company will allow certain ads for “regulated cryptocurrency exchanges” in the U.S. and Japan. Interested advertisers will be able to “apply for certification” shortly, according to the update.
This move is a partial reversal of the company’s decision back in March to ban all ads for products “including but not limited to initial coin offerings (ICO), cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and cryptocurrency trading advice.” Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MailChimp all enacted similar blanket-type bans earlier this year.
Google’s choice to modify its ad policy is not without precedent, though. Facebook was not only the first to ban advertisements back in January, but also the first to modify that policy in June to allow certain approved ads on its platform, providing they weren’t for ICOs or binary options.
Does this move signal that Google has somehow gained a greater awareness of the complexities of the blockchain space and an understanding that not all crypto products are the same? That’s unclear. At the very least, it appears that the company doesn’t want to miss out on those sweet, sweet crypto advertising dollars—especially since at least some of the ICO hype seems to have died down.