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Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

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Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#111
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not consenting adults if it's a scam, and Google can't analyze every ad to check for that. In a space where most ads are scams, this looks legit to me.

> It's not consenting adults if it's a scam Are you serious? Or is this sarcasm? If you're serious: you're welcome of course to an opinion that google is right to block scams, and / or that most cryptocurrency ads are scams. But you can't really believe that adults stop being adults, or that consent to judge the merits of, for example an ad, suddenly evaporates in the presence of a scam? Is the presence of a scam suf…

Scam = based on lies. EG I tell you that your money will be used to do X, while instead I use it to buy a new home for myself. If one is lying, the others aren't "consenting".

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#112
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As outraged as many folks might be I am thinking that only applies to people who invested in cryptocurrency.

As someone who has invested in cryptocurrencies, I have to say I don't really mind the ban – most crypto ads I've seen so far have been scammy or for subpar copycat cryptocurrencies, and I feel like that'd be the general trend, even if legitimate cryptocurrencies start using ad platforms I feel like they'll be a minority since they already get free advertisement through word of mouth by simply being innovative.

I second that. I actually see it as a positive. The "scammy stuff" that surrounds cryptocurrencies might generate demand and raise prices in the short term, but they are also very likely to deliver devestating blows to public perception and acceptance of cryptocurrencies in the long run.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#113
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acai berry is ok, but Bitcoin is bad?

Sorry if I'm out of the loop, but why would açaí be bad? I can walk a couple of minutes and buy a drink of açaí with guaraná, and I've never heard anything negative about these drinks.

Well: "very little research has been done in people on the health effects of acai products." [1]

In general, health supplements, miracle berries, etc. sit on dubious scientific ground: many have either not been extensively studied, or have been studied and shown to have no discernible effect (good or bad). The assertion here is not that açaí itself is bad per se, but that it is marketed as being healthy with little or no scientific evidence to back that up - and therefore that people are being convinced to waste their money through deceptive marketing, in that they imagine themselves to be getting a health benefit that likely does not exist.

[1] https://nccih.nih.gov/health/acai/ataglance.htm

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#114
post #92
post #12

As outraged as many folks might be this is just good business for Google and Facebook. Internet advertising, nay advertising at large, is dangerously close to becoming a regulated, or more regulated, industry in the wake of fake news and Russian troll farms etc. If they aren't proactive and people lose money they inch ever closer to requirements that can and will eat large chunks of their profit margins. This isn't e…

"let's illustrate we're not a monopoly and avoid monopoly regulation by using our market power to arbitrarily ban this one thing"

Mainstream media is driving campaigns against Google in many countries. They do need to do some PR and appear to do "good" things, even when it is quite clear that is just gesturing.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I only want just the _legitimate_ ICO ads to remain. I‘m sorry to bring you the news, but there aren‘t any. Oh, and just in case there are, the crypto ecosystem implosion happening this year will drag them along to the bottom of the pool together with all the scams.

Reminds me of the dot com boom with tons of $noun.com companies of which the vast majority were worthless. But there were some true innovations, and those gems survived the crash. Had we lumped them all together and prohibited any of their advertisement, they may have never succeeded.

Often the significant innovations don't need to advertise. I didn't use the early Google because I saw an ad for it and I don't think Etherium did paid ads for their launch.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My livelihood depends on online advertising and yet I have the opposite feelings. Google (and Facebook and Reddit etc) should be doing more content policing, especially for the content monetized by advertising, and should be held liable for the content which they monetize. Right now, no one is responsible for the poisonous mixture of fake-news / radicalizing context coupled with attention based internet economy where…

> Right now, no one is responsible for the poisonous mixture of fake-news / radicalizing contex Who decides what’s fake news. Trump said there was problems in Sweden. NYTimes called him out on it. Not even a year later they are writing about the problems in Sweden. So was the fake news trumps comment? Or the denile and lying by the media? Maybe we should just censor everything. Censor trump, the media, advertising, e…

But it matters what exactly he said and what exactly NY Times writes. For example, if I write in all caps SWEDEN IS DYING, ECONOMY iN SHAMBLES - SAD! - this would be a lie and not useful content and google can decide to remove it and we would be no worse off.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My livelihood depends on online advertising and yet I have the opposite feelings. Google (and Facebook and Reddit etc) should be doing more content policing, especially for the content monetized by advertising, and should be held liable for the content which they monetize. Right now, no one is responsible for the poisonous mixture of fake-news / radicalizing context coupled with attention based internet economy where…

> Right now, no one is responsible for the poisonous mixture of fake-news / radicalizing contex Who decides what’s fake news. Trump said there was problems in Sweden. NYTimes called him out on it. Not even a year later they are writing about the problems in Sweden. So was the fake news trumps comment? Or the denile and lying by the media? Maybe we should just censor everything. Censor trump, the media, advertising, e…

Although you get downvoted, that is a very valid question. Right now there is a process going on in Sweden to change the country's constitution, thus enabling the government to perform more censorship. It is fueled e.g. by established newspapers and tabloids who campaign against Google, Wordpress and other Internet companies. Who gets to decide what is fake news?

I am concerned by this trend. Instead of more open and more honest reporting in mainstream media, the governments try to silence those who post controversial stories - even when they are true, or at least not any more false than "accepted" news.

[Trump's comment about Sweden was false in the sense that "last night" nothing very unusual happened in Sweden; it was true in the sense that every night there were some things that you wouldn't expect from a country that has been so stable for so long as Sweden has, even though the claims about "civil war" in Sweden are highly exaggerated.]

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#118
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the ICO/coin ads promising 49,000% returns that I see here in the UK, I’m glad that they’re putting the brakes on it.

It would be one thing if they followed a strict rule such as "we will block ads that present unrealistic claims" and then applied that rule equally across all advertisers. But the concern is they are singleing out one particular technology. That will harm those cryptocurrency business which aren't making claims about certain percentage of returns, thereby making it hard for a potential new novel use of cryptocurrency…

novel uses of cryptocurrency will almost inevitably gain traction because of their worth, especially considering how hot the market is right now with whales willing to throw ETH/BTC at anything that has a tiny chance to moon. how would Google enforce a rule like "we will block ads that present unrealistic claims?" who defines unrealistic? if you left that definition up to me 99% of the ERC-20 token based startups out there are unrealistic. there's no way that Google could "apply that rule equally across all advertiser" without being accused of being impartial/having vested interests.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#119
post #23

I completely understand this decision but that doesn’t make me any less disappointed. Not in Google but the users. Nothing has changed if after all these years, people still fall for scams: Nigerian princes, Ponzi schemes, single house wives and now ICOs.

Not all the ICOs are bad, just most of them.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#120
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acai berry is ok, but Bitcoin is bad?

Sorry if I'm out of the loop, but why would açaí be bad? I can walk a couple of minutes and buy a drink of açaí with guaraná, and I've never heard anything negative about these drinks.

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