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Google Reportedly Blacklists 'Ethereum' As a Google Ad Keyword, Startup Claims (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Yahoo: Google has reportedly blacklisted keywords mentioning Ethereum (ETH) on its advertising platform Google Ads, smart contract auditing startup Decenter tweeted on Jan. 10. The official Google Ads account replied to the tweet stating that cryptocurrency exchanges targeting the United States and Japan can be advertised on the platform, and that targeting other countries could be the reason for the ad rejection.
When Decenter explained that they are a group of developers doing smart contract security audits and that they were seeing the error message when trying to use the "ethereum development services" and "ethereum security audits" keywords, Google Ads' official account answered: "Although we wouldn't be able to preemptively confirm if your keyword is eligible to trigger ads, we'd recommend that you refer to the 'Cryptocurrencies' section of our policy on Financial products and services." When Decenter asked the Ethereum community on Reddit in an open query about the alleged Google Ads policy changes, the team specified that: "Any of the keywords that contain "ethereum" in our campaigns are no longer showing ads as of January 9th and are now reporting the following error." Decenter said they have tested keywords for "ethereum smart contract audits" and "eos smart contract audits" and found that only the EOS-referenced keyword showed ads.
Google banned all cryptocurrency-related advertising of all types in June 2018. However, Google announced in September 2018 that it would change its ad policy in October, reallowing some crypto businesses to advertise on its platform. Namely, the changes allow cryptocurrency exchanges ads in the United States and Japan.
When Decenter explained that they are a group of developers doing smart contract security audits and that they were seeing the error message when trying to use the "ethereum development services" and "ethereum security audits" keywords, Google Ads' official account answered: "Although we wouldn't be able to preemptively confirm if your keyword is eligible to trigger ads, we'd recommend that you refer to the 'Cryptocurrencies' section of our policy on Financial products and services." When Decenter asked the Ethereum community on Reddit in an open query about the alleged Google Ads policy changes, the team specified that: "Any of the keywords that contain "ethereum" in our campaigns are no longer showing ads as of January 9th and are now reporting the following error." Decenter said they have tested keywords for "ethereum smart contract audits" and "eos smart contract audits" and found that only the EOS-referenced keyword showed ads.
Google banned all cryptocurrency-related advertising of all types in June 2018. However, Google announced in September 2018 that it would change its ad policy in October, reallowing some crypto businesses to advertise on its platform. Namely, the changes allow cryptocurrency exchanges ads in the United States and Japan.
Their are several significant security issues around Ethereum. Basically, Ethereum isn't just a coin, it's a complete programming language. Ethereum is a vast collection not of coins, but of programs. You can write malware, or oopsware, in Ethereum.
One of the most interesting things about code released on Ethereum is that you can't update it. Any bug you have, you're stuck with forever. People have lost a lot of money that way, suffered damage. So it's important to make sure your Ethereum code is 100% perfect, and avoid to code that makes any assumptions about the future. DNS entries change, companies are bought and sold - even entire countries come and go, with a new country emerging about every three years, on average. There are lots of ways to have code that needs to be updated. Ethereum code, since it can't be updated, can't assume that a country that exists today will still be there when the code runs.
The advertiser in TFS is a security company that helps people make sure their Ethereum code is bullet proof. That's a useful service.