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Google’s crackdown against cryptocurrencies is enclosing a new domain. After announcing a full-fledged ban on the cryptocurrency and ICO ads that will be implemented from June this year, Google has now banned cryptocurrency mining browser extensions from the Chrome store.
Google will start removing existing browser extensions that facilitate cryptocurrency mining from July. However, there’s no official word on blocking other blockchain-related extensions.
Google developers have been worried about crypto mining extensions since last autumn in a Google Forum posts, and the company has finally decided to restrict those extensions which do not comply with its policies. Google has disclosed that about 90% of extensions in the Chrome Web Store “failed to comply with” Google’s policies for the cryptocurrency.
According to Google’s extensions platform product manager, James Wagner,
“The key to maintaining a healthy extensions ecosystem is to keep the platform open and flexible. This empowers our developers to build creative and innovative customizations for Chrome browser users. This is why we chose to defer banning extensions with crypto mining scripts until it became clear that the vast majority of mining extensions submitted for review failed to comply with our single purpose policy or were malicious.”
This move comes as a relief for the wider internet community and a distressing revelation for cryptojackers as they were easily able to mine a significant amount of cryptocurrency at the expense of other people.
The mining extension ban comes less than a month after Google announced its plans to ban cryptocurrency-related advertisements. These sort of announcement shows Google’s strict policies for bad ads to gain users’ trust.
Meanwhile, Google isn’t alone for standing against crypto scammers, previously, social networking giants like Facebook as well as Twitter, have also imposed a similar ban on some of the advertisements from crypto exchanges.
Crypto market as a whole is having a bad time after such announcements and investors are worried as Bitcoin has recently reached another record low level.
