Competitive Intelligence Marketplace

Again, This is NOT CI

Here's a local story (local to me here in North Carolina) about a woman who was fired from a hazardous waste management company, still had access to her old company's email system and used that access to illegally monitor company executives' email and eventually intercept a bid that the company had submitted and used it to help her new company win the contract.  Thankfully the term "competitive intelligence" wasn't used in the story, nor for that matter was "corporate espionage", but too often the press confuses this kind of activity with CI.

Bad Things Happen to Good Companies

Lenny Fuld uses the New England Patriots as a lead into the dangers of not adhering to ethical guidelines.

HP Execs Being Sued by Reporters

Remember the HP case?  You know, the one that featured private investigators spying on HP board members among other nefarious activities.  It's one of those cases that causes headaches for the CI profession because the articles about it invariably equate competitive intelligence with corporate spying.  (See SCIP's Code of Ethics to learn why the two terms are not synonymous).  Weeeell, some reporters are suing the HP execs behind the scandal and are seeking damages for  "illegal and reprehensible conduct".  Should be interesting.

New Paper on Ethics and Intelligence

Kevin Desouza, the Director of the Institute for National Security Education and Research at the University of Washington, has written a new paper on ethics in intelligence and he's offering papers to those interested.  Check out his blog for more info.

"When the spies are out of control" from Macleans

Another in a line of recent articles about "corporate spying."  For a refresher on why competitive intelligence practiced properly is not spying please visit the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals and review the Code of Ethics.

Suing Google to Get Your Competitors' Ad Buying Info

Here's an interesting article about a seemingly mundane lawsuit that could have some long-term impact on Google advertisers.  Long story short: can you sue your competitor for copyright infringement and then get access to all of their ad buying history on Google or any other ad service?  One expert doesn't think it's likely:

"The reality is that most of that information is available from third party vendors…for less money than a lawyer would charge you," said Lee. "Given the fact that [comScore or other third party measurement firms] could get you pretty close to the actual data, and you wouldn't have to engage in potentially ethically dubious behavior, in other words filing a frivolous lawsuit to get the information, I don't see that happening," he said.

PETA Suing Circus Over Spying

From the February 28, 2006 edition of the Winston-Salem Journal:

The nation's largest circus went on trial yesterday on allegations that it ran a corporate-espionage campaign against an animal-rights group and hired a former CIA operative to help run it.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sued Feld Entertainment, which produces the Ringling Bros. circus, saying that the company's president supervised the spying efforts.

PETA says that circus operatives stole sensitive documents such as donor lists. It is asking for $1.8 million in legal fees and damages, as well as full disclosure of any spying activities.