Salon.com writer Jeff Stein investigates why the head of Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey hired a former top CIA official to spy on and manipulate the life of a free-lance writer. The two-part series documents an eight-year campaign of dirty tricks played on Janice Pottker, a writer who tried to publish stories on child labor abuses in the circus and on Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey Circus owners, the Feld family.

Procter & Gamble admitted that a company working on its behalf went through the garbage of rival company Unilever in an attempt to find out more about its hair-care business. According to the Financial Times, the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals in Alexandria, Virginia, however, wrinkles its nose at the mention of rifling through a competitor's rubbish in search of corporate secrets. "It's not professional," says Bill Weber, executive director of the society, which represents 6,000 corporate intelligence gatherers in 45 countries. Nonetheless, over the years many corporates have used the time-honored technique to spy on their competitors and enemies. The Financial Times warns, "Corporate spying can cause long-term damage to a company's reputation, as British Airways discovered in the 1990s when it hacked into the computers of its rival Virgin Atlantic."