Until now we have been discussing deception to obtain information you have a right to know. This is different from corporate espionage, which means using deception or other means to gain information that you do not have a right to know.The information is typically about the target company's products, strategies, finances, people or research and development. This is both unethical and illegal. Because the entity conducting the espionage has no right to know the information, it certainly has no right to use deceit to obtain it. For example, some companies attempt to gain inside information on competitors by having employees represent themselves as graduate students working on a thesis. They may say or imply that the information will be disguised or aggregated. Obviously, this is illegitimate. This fits the general model of corporate spying, using fraudulent means to gain access to information to which the competing company has no right.

A sidelight to corporate espionage is a situation in which you may un-deceitfully obtain information to which you have no right. For example, you are a sales representative staying overnight in a hotel in your prospect’s city. You discover that a sales representative of a competitor stayed in the same hotel room the night before and left a copy of the competitor’s bid in the drawer. All you have to do is leaf through the bid and you will learn the competitor’s prices, terms, and recommended products. From this you will gain a decisive competitive advantage. You have no right to the information, and in fact (in most cases) the bid will be clearly marked “confidential.” Yet you have not deceived anyone to obtain the information. Should you consider it a lucky break, or the due consequences of the competitor’s blunder in leaving a bid in a hotel room?

Because the principle we have been following is the one of "right to know," the only consistent answer is that you must not leaf through the bid or otherwise allow yourself or your company to learn its contents. Most reputable companies have a policy against using—or even becoming aware of, if possible—competitors’ confidential information. Managers and executives—if they are ethical—will enforce these policies and rigorously prevent the use of information to which the company has no right.