Any business wishing to advertise crypto-related products and services must now prove that they are eligible by filling out a form called “Cryptocurrency Products and Services Onboarding Request” as well as providing proof of ownership of the domain(s) associated with this application.
Even though this has just been officially stated, it is obvious this is something that has been going on or at least tested for a while now and same goes for Google as well since the article also mentioned that, as I have seen some verified ads as well as pages after the initial ban.
However, this is a good move as this is what I have expected anyway and as long as an ICO can show its legitimacy, it will at least help clean up the space from scam ICOs trying to use the space for their devilish reasons. Obviously, these guys cannot ignore the revenue being generated from these ICO adverts, so banning them completely is not a good business option.
Yeah, it is even more interesting to me that they are at least going to be doing verification before allowing any advert when related to ICOs. Just like you said, this will be a general good move which will still in a way be helpful for the space as there will still be some form of sanity.
At least, instead of the same old way of doing things, a lot will be different now as you can at least trust the legitimacy of the project being advertised in a way. I do see some restrictions and regulations are always good against scammers.