Trademark Bidding on Adwords - illegal?

Question

I was contacted by the CEO of a huge company, complaining what I "was" doing was illegal.

I was bidding on their trademark terms, and was driving traffic to my site that gave a short (but bad) review of their product, then promoting another competitors product.

Is this illegal? Can someone show me references?

Answer 1

Not anymore - google have changed their policy to allow it.

Though it was never illegal in the first place, just against google's adwords policy.

If you were using it in your ppc creatives, this would be infringement - but not in your terms.