A competitor shows up above your organic listing on a search for your own brand name. The instinct is to file a complaint with Google and assume they will be removed.
They will not be. Understanding why saves you a month of wrong moves.
Quick note: this is operator experience, not legal advice.
What Google's policy actually restricts
The policy governs what appears in ad text. It is not a mechanism for controlling who may select your brand as a keyword.
A granted complaint changes a competitor's ad copy, not their keyword list.
Structuring the defense
- Isolate brand into its own campaign
- Use exact and phrase match
- Point ads at a page genuinely about your brand
- Exclude brand terms from non-brand campaigns and Performance Max where possible
The conquesting side
Keep competitor terms in dedicated campaigns, target comparison intent, and send traffic to a page built for the comparison rather than your homepage.
Do it when the economics justify it, not when your feelings do.
What to actually watch
Auction insights, brand impression share, brand CPC trend, and non-brand performance with brand excluded tell you whether the structure is working.