Google to ban ads for crypto-currencies and ICOs
San Francisco — Google will ban online advertisements promoting crypto-currencies and initial coin offerings (ICOs) starting in June, as part of a broader crackdown on the marketing of a new breed of high-risk financial products. Alphabet’s Google announced the decision on Wednesday night in an update to its policy, which says it will begin to block ads for "crypto-currencies and related content". Facebook took a similar step in January, leaving the two largest web-ad sellers out of reach of the nascent digital-currency sector. Bitcoin, the largest crypto-currency by market value, pared an advance of about 2% after Google’s announcement, trading little changed at $9,099 as of 1.04pm in Hong Kong. Rival coins ripple and ether also pared gains. The internet-search giant is also restricting ads for financial products, including binary options, a risky derivative with an all-or-nothing pay-off. Right now, Google queries for terms such as "binary options" and "buy bitcoin" produce four a...
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