Facebook announced last week that they would be banning any advertisements related to binary options, cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, and other ‘risky’ investment options. These are very popular services right now, and many marketers want to be able to capitalize on that, but this ban is making it more difficult. To make matters worse, it seems that certain regulators are pressuring Google to do the same thing for their ad networks.
Jason Roy, who is a senior investigator at Manitoba Securities Commission as well as the chairman of Canada’s Binary Options Task Force commented, “We’re very pleased with Facebook’s decision. My hope is that Google will enact a similar policy, where they specifically name products like binary options, ICOs, and cryptocurrencies.”
“Mining cryptocurrency through ads is a relatively new form of abuse that violates our policies and one that we’ve been monitoring actively,” a Google spokesperson told The Fast Company. “We enforce our policies through a multi-layered detection system across our platforms which we update as new threats emerge.”
When Google was asked about this, they said that they already ban any ads that are ‘misleading’ or ‘misrepresent’ information.
The problem seems to be that many people, and especially government regulators, believe that all, or at least most, of the binary options, ICOs, and other types of products are all scams. In reality, savvy investors are able to make a lot of money on these higher risk opportunities. Of course, there are indeed scams in these industries, and those need to be dealt with.
It is precisely the high risk – high reward position of these options that attract so many.
Any marketers who are involved with any of these services will want to keep a close eye on what actions Google decides to take.
