I feel like there’s at least some country in the world where the legal regime would be amenable to ruling against Google if they were taken to court over trademark squatting by the trademark holders.

In Argentina it is illegal (since the nineties) to mention other brands. So a Coca Cola ad cannot reference Pepsi. Laundry detergents can not make references to other brands, so they say “better than other generic brands” without names or hinting any in particular. I suppose the exact wording is important here, but this practice sound dangerously close to violating this restriction.