Major Latin-America E-commerce Firm Bans Crypto-Related Ads

Mercado Livre is deemed to be the biggest e-commerce firm in all of Latin America. Apparently, the company has decided to ban all crypto-related ads on its official website. Here is everything about it in a nutshell.

Banning Crypto-Related Ads

In an official report, the ban was first noticed by users of the company’s platform. They reportedly started receiving emails, suggesting that the aforementioned change is going to be implemented. Also, the change is said to be detailed in the firm’s policy.

Basically, the new policy is requiring all users to remove any listing that has something to do with cryptocurrency. If they choose not to, their listing will be automatically brought down from the e-commerce platform of Mercado Livre. The change was just recently introduced, though its impact has just been noticed of late.

One of the users of the said platform received a letter notifying him of the change. It states that advertising products under digital currencies and prepaid cards for games are no longer allowed. And since the user, according to the letter, has ads for the said used products – all of which are going to be banned – the company advises ending all of them immediately.

In a statement from Mercado Livre, since the implementation (initially launched March 19), all crypto-related ads that are still active on its official site – particularly those that are in the “used” condition – will soon be finalized. Users who desire to create new ads can only do so with “new products.”

Sealing A Massive Investment

Mercado Livre, which is simply Mercado Libre in Spanish, has been successful in overtaking a handful of fellow e-commerce giants, with Amazon being the most popular one. This, however, is a comparison only relevant in Latin America. Just earlier this month, the company managed to seal a deal for a massive $750 million in investment through a sale of common stock to payments network PayPal.

Large technology companies like Facebook and Google have also introduced a similar concept of bans in the past. Take for example the search engine giant’s announcement back in March last year. At that time, the tech firm decided to ban all crypto-related ads of all types, an implementation that took place in June 2018.

Apparently, though, the move from Google affected all of its ad products. In other words, companies were not successful in serving digital currency-related ads on the company’s very own websites, including all of those third-party sites in its network.