Companies have been engaged in competitive intelligence gathering since the beginning of trade and commerce. The tools and strategies have grown more sophisticated over time and society has built rules around what is considered ethical with regard to competitive intelligence.

When it comes to gathering intelligence about your competitors you are relegated for the most part to anything that is considered public domain or information that is publicly available. In other words, you cannot place spies within their organization to steal their trade secrets. However, you can subscribe to their newsletters, blogs and other publicly available information in the same manner as one of their customers would.

If information that was supposed to be secret is leaked to the public then that information becomes public information as long as you broke no laws to acquire that information.

When it comes to the legalities of competitive intelligence, be sure to consult an attorney. This blog post should not be construed as legal advice. We’re just interpreting the playing field of competitive intelligence as we understand it. At the end of the day, any public information or information that is publicly available is fair game for competitive intelligence. That’s a pretty open field if you play a fair game.

Related posts:

1. What Are Competitive Intelligence Tools?
2. Using Public Documents For Competitive Intelligence
3. How Competitive Is Intelligence?
4. When Should You Conduct Competitive Intelligence?
5. The 4 RARE Steps To Competitive Intelligence