I find it fascinating that the article never uses that term. It comes close to it, using &quot;economic espionage&quot; twice, but otherwise refers to the activity as trade-secret theft, or just &quot;plain&quot; theft.<p>Which it is, of course. But I couldn&#x27;t shake the feeling that the author, and likely the editor too, have both made sure to avoid calling it industrial espionage. To me that term would have a very loaded connotation: &quot;Company X is competing in an industry, and have inferior technology to someone else. Of course they will resort to espionage. They would be stupid and financially irresponsible not to.&quot;<p>Or maybe I&#x27;m just too cynical and jaded.