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, websites, 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.

 

 

Spy Stores

There are several hundred retail and Internet Spy Shops and Spy Stores selling a wide variety of eavesdropping equipment, which come in all sizes, shapes and functional reliability. Depending upon the application, you can buy devices that will intercept room conversations, wiretap phone conversations or use a pin-hole lens to secretly watch someone.

There are numerous issues that someone thinking about buying an eavesdropping device needs to be aware of, and those are the legal issues surrounding the use of the device and its reliability. Before you buy any type of spy device you should be aware that it is a felony to eavesdrop on someone without their knowledge. Depending upon which State or even country that if you live in, it might be legal for your to record your own conversations with someone because you are keeping the recording for documentation purposes. However, if all parties of conversation believe they are not being eavesdropped on then it is usually a felony to use some type of spy device to do so. Depending on the type of spy equipment it may also be illegal to even own it.

Because of the legal restrictions placed on many retail Spy Shops and Spy Stores, many illegal spy devices are sold over the Internet and mostly from locations based outside of the United States. Again, depending upon were you live, it may be a felony to even import illegal eavesdropping device. Also, many foreign spy shops and stores sale extremely unreliable electronic spy devices. Because of the distance and expense of shipping, dealing with returns can be a problem.

For a complete glossary of terms relevant to Spy Shops and Spy Stores please click here