Great feedback folks.

Using Competitors names Is furthest from my mind. I prefer to focus on getting good Organic Search Traffic by ethical means. I was surprised when I came across this issue, because of who's doing it (a major player) and because it's a recent enough tactic of theirs, so I decided to ask for a second opinion.

Thanks for these great answers

Chris

I can't imagine this is a White Hat SEO technique, but they don't seem to be punished for it by Google - yet.

How does Google treat the use of your competitors names in your meta keywords/descriptions? Is it a good idea?