The chief executive of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, recently warned that results of Google Search are still promoting crypto scamming and phishing websites.

Even though the policies that Google has introduced for crypto-related marketing for its ads are very strict, but the last few years have seen scammers still manage to slip through the cracks.

There have been times when scam websites have managed to appear even higher than genuine blockchain and crypto projects.

The warning

The CEO of Binance tweeted on October 27th that phishing sites had popped up in Google Search results for CoinMarketCap, which had an ‘ad’ tag in front of the actual website.

He said that these would have an impact on users who are adding smart contract addresses because they will end up using these phishing websites.

CZ said that they would attempt to reach out to Google about this problem and were also warning users in the meantime via social media channels.

CoinMarketCap is one of the top crypto data aggregators that can be found on the market and back in April 2020, Binance acquired the website for an undisclosed amount.

Since it is extremely popular, it is highly likely that a massive amount of traffic could end up falling for these scam ads.

Phishing websites

There are some cases where it can be hard for people to spot phishing websites because they generally copy URLs for tricking people who do not pay much attention when they are clicking.

For instance, CZ highlighted that one of the phishing websites that fell in this category was ‘coinomarketcaap’.

This year in April, a phishing scam related to Terra had been disclosed by SlowMist, a blockchain security firm.

This scam involved criminals using Google Ads for running copycat websites that were using Astroport branding and Achor Protocol.

SlowMist said that the websites being promoted had been ranked ahead of the actual websites that people searched for.

These had been successful in stealing Luna Classic (LUNC) of about $4.31 million between April 12th and April 21st and about 52 addresses had been compromised.

Another warning

Cybersecurity firm CheckPoint’s research arm had also published a warning back in November last year that Google Ads were used for promoting phishing websites like that of crypto wallet providers, such as Phantom and MetaMask.

It said that the scammers had been able to get away with about $500,000. The ads service of Google has been a hot topic this week.

This was after the third quarter earnings call of parent firm Alphabet disclosed that crypto and financial firms had reduced their spending on search advertising.

Google’s chief business officer, Philipp Schindler said that some advertisers had pulled back on spending in some areas where search ads were concerned.

It said that as far as financial services are concerned, they had seen a decline in loans, insurance, crypto subcategories, and mortgage.

However, the company does not seem to have any qualms about accepting money for advertisements from scammers.