There’s something nobody tells people who work in advertising, and it explains much of the confusion around this topic.
European law allows you to name a competitor. The platforms you use to buy traffic, in many cases, do not. These are two different levels that overlap, and the second is the one that gets your campaign blocked on a Tuesday morning while the first, in theory, told you that you were in the right.
Google, for example, does not restrict which brands you can add to your keyword list. You can enter the name of your most direct competitor right now and no system will stop you. The problem arises when that name appears in the ad copy and the trademark owner files a complaint. At that point, the ad is restricted. Not because it is necessarily unlawful, but because the platform’s policy operates on a complaint-based system.
That’s why an article that explains only the regulations is useless in practice. And why an article that explains only advertising platform policies exposes you to a legal risk you never saw coming.
This guide covers both levels. First, the law across three jurisdictions. Then the platforms. Then what to actually do before launching.
What technically counts as comparative advertising
This is where most people get it wrong immediately, and they get it wrong in an expensive way.
An advertisement is comparative when it identifies a competitor, or the goods and services offered by a competitor, either explicitly or implicitly. The second word is the one that matters: implicitly.
You do not have to write the name. You do not have to show the logo. If your audience understands who you are talking about, you are within the scope of comparative advertising and must comply with all the relevant conditions.
“The management software everyone uses that costs you three times as much” is comparative advertising. “Unlike the only other clinic in this city” is comparative advertising. “We’re not like those $97 courses” is comparative advertising if there is a recognizable player in that market selling for $97. In a market with two operators, saying “the alternative” effectively means identifying the competitor.
The relevant Italian legislation is Legislative Decree No. 145 of August 2, 2007, which transposes the European framework into Italian law and defines comparative advertising in precisely these terms. Above all, the same decree establishes the general principle from which everything else follows: advertising must be transparent, truthful and fair.
Three words that sound obvious. In practice, they are three separate tests that your message must pass independently.
Italy: the eight conditions under Legislative Decree 145/2007
Article 4 of the decree is the core of the matter. It establishes the conditions under which comparison is lawful, and the key word here is cumulative. You do not get to choose three. You have to comply with all of them.
The comparison must concern goods or services that satisfy the same needs or pursue the same objectives. You cannot compare your annual consulting service with a €19 ebook and claim to be more cost-effective per acquired customer.
The comparison must be objective and concern material, relevant, verifiable and representative characteristics. Price can be one of them. “Verifiable” is the word that invalidates the vast majority of Italian comparative ads: it means that the person reading the claim must be able to check the data, not simply that you know you measured it.
The message must not be misleading. It must not create confusion between you and the competitor, or between the respective trademarks. It must not cause discredit or denigration. Nor may it take unfair advantage of the reputation of another trademark. It must not present your goods as imitations or counterfeits of protected products. And for products with a protected designation of origin, the comparison must be made with products carrying the same designation.
The authority overseeing all of this is the Italian Competition Authority, or AGCM. The AGCM has powers to prohibit advertising: it can order the suspension of a message, including on its own initiative, and can require the publication of a corrective statement. Financial penalties exist, but they are not always the main damage. The main damage is that your advertising message becomes a public document on which an authority has stated that it was unfair.
There is also a second level that almost nobody considers, and which in Italy can often bite harder than the law. The Code of Marketing Communication Self-Regulation, managed by the IAP, addresses comparative advertising in Article 15. It is binding on members of the Institute, which includes a significant part of the publishing system, media concessionaires and agencies. The principle is that comparison must be fair and must not unfairly exploit another party’s reputation. The Jury reaches decisions on timelines that no court can match. If you work with structured media agencies, your message may pass through this system before it ever reaches the AGCM.
It is worth noting one thing about the Italian framework. Legislative Decree 145 protects professionals by regulating relationships between businesses. In dealings with consumers, the rules on unfair commercial practices contained in the Consumer Code apply instead. Two tracks, the same authority, and often converging outcomes.
Europe: Directive 2006/114/EC and why Italy cannot make the rules stricter
The Italian framework did not originate in Rome. It originated in Brussels, and that has a practical consequence you need to understand if you work across multiple markets.
Directive 2006/114/EC is the codified version of the European rules on misleading and comparative advertising. The eight conditions outlined above are almost a literal transposition of Article 4 of the directive. This means that you find those same eight conditions, with marginal differences, in Spain, Germany, France, Poland and other member states.
But the more interesting part is something else. On comparative advertising, the directive establishes full harmonization. Member states cannot provide broader protection than the framework allows. In other words, they cannot prohibit a comparison that the directive considers lawful.
Why does this matter? Because it overturns the intuition of many Italian business owners, who consider comparative advertising a grey area best avoided. It is not a grey area. It is a right positively recognized by European law, which the Court of Justice has repeatedly confirmed by interpreting the conditions of legality in a way that favors comparison, on the basis that comparison informs consumers and stimulates competition.
Italy’s caution toward comparative advertising is therefore cultural, not legal. It is a habit, not a prohibition.
There is, however, one area that deserves particular attention and is generating increasing scrutiny across Europe: environmental claims. Comparisons based on sustainability, environmental impact, recyclability or emissions compensation have become one of the most closely monitored areas of the entire framework, and the rules have tightened considerably over the past two years. If your comparison relies on a green claim, treat it as the most fragile part of the campaign, not the safest.
USA: the opposite logic
Moving from Europe to the United States does not mean moving from strict rules to permissive ones. It means moving to a completely different logic.
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission does not discourage comparative advertising. It encourages it. Its Statement of Policy Regarding Comparative Advertising, contained in 16 CFR Part 14, explicitly states that identifying competitors can help consumers make decisions, encourage companies to improve their products and tend to lower prices. It also states that neither self-regulatory organizations nor broadcasters should obstruct truthful comparative advertising.
Read that again. It is the exact opposite of the Italian cultural attitude.
But American freedom comes with a price, and this is where the model truly differs. In Europe, the main risk is the public authority. In the United States, the main risk is your competitor.
Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. §1125(a), allows a company harmed by a false or misleading statement to sue the competitor directly in federal court. Without waiting for a regulator. Without filing a complaint with the FTC. The most immediate remedy is an injunction, and in fast-moving campaigns, a preliminary injunction is often the real objective because it can kill the ad while it is still producing effects.
There is also a third route, which is the one most brands encounter first in practice. The National Advertising Division, a self-regulatory body, reviews advertising claims and recommends that they be modified or withdrawn. It is neither a court nor the FTC, but ignoring its proceedings can create an escalation problem that is difficult to manage.
The substantive criterion, in any case, is always the same: substantiation. You need the evidence before the ad runs, and you need it in the exact form in which the claim is made. U.S. courts have repeatedly rejected tests that were constructed in a non-representative way. “Faster than the leading competitor” is indefensible. “Completed the same workflow 32% faster than X, in a May 2026 test using the same dataset” is defensible.
The level lawyers don’t tell you about: the platforms
Now we get to the part that actually matters to people running campaigns.
On Google Ads, the fundamental distinction is between keywords and ad copy. Keywords are not subject to trademark restrictions: Google does not investigate or restrict the use of third-party trademarks as keywords. Ad copy, however, can be restricted, but only after the trademark owner files a complaint. It is a complaint-based enforcement model, not a preventive one.
Two practical consequences follow from this. First, you can run campaigns targeting competitor brands and remain fully compliant, provided their name does not appear in headlines, descriptions or the displayed URL. Second, and less well known, since July 2023 a complaint has a limited scope: it restricts the advertisers and ads specifically identified in the complaint, rather than the entire industry. This means that your competitor may have acted against another operator without affecting you, and vice versa.
On Meta, the picture is different. There is no policy that categorically prohibits comparative advertising. Instead, there are Advertising Standards concerning intellectual property, which prohibit content that infringes third-party rights and, above all, ads that may confuse people about the origin, sponsorship or affiliation of goods and services. Here too, enforcement largely takes place following a complaint from the rights holder, and Meta provides brands with dedicated tools to identify abuses at scale.
The operational paradox is this. Your comparison can be perfectly compliant with Legislative Decree 145 and still be disapproved because the automated review system detects the third party’s trademark in a video or graphic and interprets it as a potential violation. You are not losing a lawsuit. You are losing a support ticket.
And it works the other way around too, which is the more dangerous scenario. The ad passes review, runs for three weeks and converts extremely well. The platform has nothing to say. But the claim was not actually substantiable and the competitor notices. In that case, the platform’s approval does not protect you in any way. It was never a judgment on legality.
Checklist before launching a comparative ad
Before sending the ad for review, answer these questions in writing.
Is the competitor identifiable, even implicitly, by the audience I am addressing? If yes, you are within the rules governing comparative advertising.
Do the two products satisfy the same need? If you have to explain why they are comparable, they probably are not.
Is the characteristic I am comparing verifiable by the reader, with a source, date and methodology? If the evidence exists only in my head or in an internal spreadsheet, it is not verifiable.
Does the evidence support the claim in its exact wording? A test conducted on an earlier version of the competitor’s product does not support a claim about the product as it exists today.
Does the message contain judgments about the competitor, or only data? Discredit almost always comes from the adjective, not the number.
Does the competitor’s trademark appear in an element that the platform interprets as ad copy?
Who is internally signing off on this claim, and where is the supporting documentation stored? If the competitor comes after you six months from now, how long will it take to retrieve it?
If even one answer is uncertain, the solution is not necessarily to abandon the comparison. It is to make the claim narrower and more specific. Fragile comparative advertising is almost always the advertising that tries to say too much.
One final thing. This article is for informational purposes only and does not replace legal advice. Comparative advertising is one of the few areas of marketing where the cost of a preventive legal consultation is clearly lower than the cost of getting it wrong.
