A Growing Problem..
Industrial espionage or corporate espionage is espionage conducted for commercial purposes instead of national security purposes.
The term is distinct from legal and ethical activities such as examining corporate publications, web sites, patent filings, and the like to determine the activities of a corporation (this is normally referred to as competitive intelligence). Theoretically the difference between espionage and legal information gathering is clear. In practice, it is quite difficult to sometimes tell the difference between legal and illegal methods. Especially if one starts to consider the ethical side of information gathering, the border becomes even more blurred and elusive of definition.
Industrial espionage describes activities such as theft of trade secrets, bribery, blackmail, and technological surveillance. 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.
Industrial espionage is most commonly associated with technology-heavy industries, particularly the computer and automobile sectors.
Espionage takes place in many forms. In short, the purpose of espionage is to gather knowledge about (an) organization(s). A spy may be hired, or may work for oneself.