2. Is it ethical to send an attractive employee to a bar to "hang out" with a competitive employee in the hopes of getting information? Again, this is quite dependent upon the situation. If one "assigns" the attractive employee to participate in espionage as part of their job duty, and it is fully disclosed, then it is not necessarily unethical -- any more than sending someone to shop for a brand of beer at a bar in order to get others to purchase, etc. If the competitive employee gives information, then the ethical onus is on them, their agreement and their conscience. Now, that said, this assumes the attractive employee is only there to "hang out." if, however, it goes further than that, and sexual favors are offered for information, or blatant lies are told (not simply by omission, but by direction), then the behavior is unethical because it has no moral standing.
3. Is it ethical to have an employee engage in competitive intelligence by combing the Internet, newspapers, magazines, or anything published to form a competitive intelligence...
In order to be engaged in the contemporary marketplace, one must glean as much information from as many sources as possible. If something is published via a news release, company newsletter, blog on the Internet, or even searching through documents filed with governmental agencies, this is public knowledge and not subjected to any forms of censorship or legal action. Using materials stamped "confidential," or "company property only," are quite different, but these types of documents would not typically be available to just anyone.
Thus, the ethics of each of these scenarios is very utilitarian driven -- do the ends justify the means, or the means justify the ends. Are the means in gleaning information legal, forthright, and moral? One sure way to address the issue is to ask oneself how one might feel if he found out a competitor was doing any of the three scenarios to their own company -- and move forward from there.
