[netcan]

This is common practice. Google's policy is different depending on country and it changes pretty frequently. There are two issues here: Appearing on searches containing your company name and using your company name in ads.

The latter has a better chance of being removed upon complaint, especially if the landing pages don't have anything to do with your company.

In some countries (not the US, UK), Google usually acts in favour of the trademark owner and pulls both ads and keywords upon request.

You can make the complaint here: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&... Send it by mail or fax as well.

If they're doing negative advertising, you could also try going to them directly (or maybe via a lawyer). It could easily be a 3rd party agency writing these ads and the company management might be embarrassed to be caught.

[hnfwerr]

Common practice? I did a lot of search for popular companies / domains and didn't see such an add.

I really thought it wasn't allowed, but I guess I will try to fax/mail a complain...

[mattbee]

Worked for my company (UK) a few years ago once I'd sent a paper letter to Mountain View and waited a few weeks. Since then no ads now appear against our company name. Not sure how they handle it these days but I made an argument that our competitor was "passing off" their products as ours. What you're talking about sounds like libel.