I once used a competitors name in a PPC campaign and get a very stiff letter from them threatening legal action. But is this against Google TOS? I have just taken on an account that has been running for a number of years WITH some very big competitors names in their Adwords account yet they dont seem to have any problems. A search for the competitor will produce just 1 adwords result, my client! Just after some views. Thanks
As far as I know it is not against Google's TOS to use competitors names, it's just if they're trademarked terms, you can't. Only way to find out is to bid on them and see which ones get through.
To answer your question in short: no its not against Google's TOS. If the term is trademarked, then your competitor can take legal action. So i recommend taking it off, its just easier that way. I've advertise under competitor names it a few times, and they sent me a few letters. Thats when i start taking them off. However u can indirectly advertise on competitor keywords. For example, u can appear on ebay searches by using the word bay on broad match. (not 100% sure it works tho) What i do nowadays is have a black list of competitor words (negative match) to avoid any legal issues.