Whats business espionage?
Industrial espionage and corporate espionage are phrases used to describe espionage conducted for commercial purposes instead of national security purposes. At the most innocuous level, the term is applied to the legal and mundane methods of examining corporate publications, web sites, patent filings, and the like to determine the activities of a corporation (though this is normally referred to as business intelligence), through to illegal methods such as bribery, blackmail, technological surveillance and even occasional violence. As well as spying on commercial organizations, governments can also be targets of commercial espionage—for example, to determine the terms of a tender for a government contract so that another tenderer can underbid. Information can make the difference between success and failure; if a trade secret is stolen, the competitive playing field is levelled or even tipped in favor of a competitor. Although a lot of information gathering is accomplished by combing thr
