Corporate espionage — sometimes also called industrial espionage, economic espionage or corporate spying — is the practice of using espionage techniques for commercial or financial purposes. We usually think of “espionage” in terms of spies working on behalf of one government trying to get information about another. But in fact, many of the same techniques — and even many of the same spies — work in both realms.
Types of industrial espionage
LegalMatch outlines a number of techniques that fall under the umbrella of industrial espionage.