Now Google plans to crack down on dodgy financial and crypto-currency ads
Google has published its 2017 annual report detailing the type and number of ‘bad ads’ it has removed from its from platform – the fifth year it has done so.
In 2017 Google took down more than 3.2 billion ads, removed 320,000 supposedly bad publishers from its ad network and blocked nearly 90,000 websites and 700,000 mobile apps for policy violations.
Last year’s bad ad total was 1.7bn which, presumably, means that Google is doing more or the scammers are getting worse.
It also added 28 new advertiser policies and 20 new publisher policies to combat new threats and including policies against discrimination and intolerance beyond current hate speech protections.
In a what looks like a pre-emptive strike Google says it will add policies addressing ads in unregulated, overly complex, or speculative financial products like binary options, crypto-currencies, foreign exchange markets and contracts for difference (CFDs), an exotic financial bet.
Which means a whole new raft of Google regulation/internal regulators. Regulating such financial products is a veritable nightmare and will test Google’s new proactive standpoint to the limit.