Joining Google and Facebook, Microsoft’s Bing search engine will no longer show advertising for cryptocurrency, related products, and unregulated binary options. The news arrives by way of a short post on the Bing Ads blog that says the change will be made to Microsoft’s global financial product and services policies in June prior to a complete ban of these ads in late June or early July.
“Because cryptocurrency and related products are not regulated, we have found them to present a possible elevated risk to our users, with the potential for bad actors to participate in predatory behaviors, or otherwise scam consumers,” said Melissa Alsoszatai-Petheo, advertiser policy manager. “To help protect our users from this risk, we have made the decision to disallow advertising.”
Cryptocurrency — along with the related services and products — join other “legally questionable business opportunities” on Microsoft’s ban list,such as Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, and investments that depend on adding participants to a scheme. For instance, an ad can say: “Save more of your money,” followed by “learn this money-saving tip and save more.” A noncompliant version would say something like: “Save your money today,” followed by “sign up for this secret or risk losing your savings.”
Microsoft’s Bing Ads polices already ban virtual currencies that are designed to facilitate illegal purposes. Examples include avoiding applicable taxes, money laundering, and the promotion of fake/forged virtual currencies.