Google, The Definition Of Irony?

This week, Google announced that they would no longer be allowing cryptocurrency based advertisements to be published through Ad Words, Google’s well-renowned advertising platform. Many traders and crypto experts did see this coming, let's face it, with Facebook already working on such a project and Twitter not so far behind, Google do need to be seen to be keeping up with the trend so to speak. Censorship of cryptocurrency advertising is being masked as a ploy to protect innocent people from scams. As we all know, all walks of life expose us to risks in which we could fall victim of a scam, but for some reason, the big internet corporations are focusing their efforts on protecting users from cryptocurrency scams, not other, more prominent scams such as identity theft for example. In short, I still can’t see any evidence to suggest that cryptocurrency scams are the height of cybercrime at the moment.

The irony in this is that in October 2017, CNBC announced that both Goldman Sachs and Google were two of the most ‘active corporate investors in blockchain technology’. This is when the plot thickens and the irony deepens, not only that however, one of the other most prominent investors in blockchain technology; Alphabet is also owned by Google. Clearly, Google does have some concrete invested in blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, so to move towards banning cryptocurrency advertising, through their medium is a rather confusing scenario. By doing this, they are at risk of reducing the opportunity for new investors to get involved with the currencies Google have already invested in, meaning they are going to lose money and of course put their own investments at risk. I’m only talking minuscule amounts here, considering Google, on the whole, is worth around $527 billion (according to CNN), they aren’t exactly going to go into liquidation because of this. What this does present us with, however, is the idea of an ulterior motive, pushing Google towards cryptocurrency ad censorship. Any business opportunity that results in a loss of finances would be counter-productive. I am speculating, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone, somewhere else, is offering Google some sort of cash incentive for banning cryptocurrency advertising. With that in mind, it’s similarly likely that actually, Facebook and Twitter are all in the same boat. Could national governments be behind this new wave of cryptocurrency advertising censorship? Is this a new, untapped area of control? I’m not saying it is, but what I am asking, is such an idea really that incomprehensible? Featured Image Source: Flickr