Is it misleading to pay search engines to rank your internet listing with your competitors?

In Private Career Training Institutions Agency v. Vancouver Career College (Burnaby) Inc., 2011 BCCA 69 the Vancouver Career College paid Internet search engines such as Google or Yahoo for the use of competitors' names as a "keyword". This resulted in the college's name appearing first or in another preferred position on a list of names that appeared when a user searched the Internet using the competitors' name. Was this "misleading advertising". The British Columbia Court of Appeal said no:

[26] In argument before the chambers judge and in this Court, the respondents contended that their keyword advertising is akin to advertising that places a business advertisement proximate to a competitors listing in the Yellow Pages of a telephone book. The appellant rejects this contention as do I, but I do not accept the appellant's assertion that the proper analogy is to the white pages where individual names appear.

[27] These propositions seek to analyze the legal implications of the use of modern technology with practice and technology that bears no resemblance to it. The Yellow Pages are based on topics, not names. The white pages contain names, but no choices. An Internet page gives choices, names and topics. It is information technology carried far beyond the traditional.

[28] The task for the chambers judge in this case was to consider whether there were reasonable grounds to believe that the results of the use of today's technology misled or were likely to mislead. That is, whether using a competitor's name as a keyword to electronically produce a web-page showing the respondents' web-site in priority on a list of possible career colleges was misleading or likely to mislead.