BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : JANUARY 29, 2001 ISSUE
BOOKS Spies Inc. SPOOKED Espionage in Corporate America By Adam L. Penenberg and Marc Barry Perseus -- 188pp -- $26 Earlier this year, when a Washington corporate investigative firm working on behalf of Oracle Corp. got nabbed trying to buy the trash of an association backing rival Microsoft Corp., a window opened onto the world of corporate spy vs. spy. Now comes Spooked, trying to open the window further, as it claims on its book jacket to ''unravel the truth and hypocrisy behind the multibillion dollar corporate intelligence business.'' If only. Spooked, by former Forbes writer Adam Penenberg and corporate spy Marc Barry, is a disappointing book that over-generalizes and, while offering peeks into this world, falls well short of its boasting. Even so, it may still be worth a read for the curious, or for those who need a reminder about vigilance against competitors. Just don't expect the definitive treatment. Corporate spying takes many forms that cover the breadth of the ethical spectrum. At one end is outright illegal activity, such as theft of trade secrets. At the other is simple digging into public information, obscure government records, research papers, and the like. The vast middle is murkier, where identities are often cloaked and unsuspecting sources are duped into giving up valuable information. In short, the tactics don't always pass what some in the industry have dubbed the ''throw-up test''--if you had to testify in court about what you did, would the jury get sick? Spooked shows us some of this varied world. There is a lengthy discussion of a trade-secrets battle between label maker Avery Dennison Corp. and a Taiwanese competitor, culminating in the first case brought to trial under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. There is the tale of a frozen pizza maker's quest to crack a rival's plans, via an investigator who deceives people by misrepresenting his identity. (Surprise--the investigator is Barry, serving an awkward dual role as co-author and subject.) And then there is a portrait of a ''librarian''--the trade term for people who do document, not field, research--using computer skills to uncover data. But Spooked disappoints, first of all, because it doesn't use these ingredients to create some sort of overall picture. How much spying is sleazy or illegal? How much is simply routine due diligence-style research, as common as it is devoid of intrigue? And while touching on the ethics of certain tactics, such as prying information loose under false pretenses--''pretexting,'' as it's known in the trade--Spooked never offers a discussion of the full range of ethical or legal issues. ''Pretext,'' it is clear, is just a fancy word for lying--how about some exploration of that? In trying to breathlessly cast corporate espionage as a growing, multibillion-dollar threat, Spooked ignores a reality that is underappreciated: Too many companies actually do too little investigation of deals, suppliers, competitors, and the like, thus shortchanging investors and employees. Spooked misses another point, too: The former government agents it represents as powering the spy boom often make pretty lousy corporate investigators. (This reviewer once worked at an investigative firm and saw this himself.) Perhaps the best that can be said about Spooked is that, in its flawed way, it spotlights a little-known phenomenon that American business ignores at its peril. By CHRISTOPHER H. SCHMITT _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Spies Inc. PHOTO: Cover, ``Spooked'' INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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