Competitive Intelligence” is a term for legitimately gathering and analysing publicly available information on competitors, markets, products etc.  Like most commercial organizations, we use legitimate and entirely above-board Competitive Intelligence techniques to track our competitors, partners and potential customers. 
Common examples of the sources of Competitive Intelligence include:

• Information of all sorts available on the Internet, including informal sources such as bulletin boards or discussion groups and job advertisements
• Official publications including annual accounts, marketing brochures, press releases, white papers, the European Journal, product brochures, user guides, training materials etc.
• Information on suppliers and competitors collected by Procurement staff, customer relationship managers etc. going about their normal business
• Information on customers, markets, competitors and products collected by Marketing and Sales staff
• Information on suppliers, competitors and customers collected by HR staff during the course of interviews, or by staff from casual conversation with colleagues in other companies
• Various other sources of intelligence such as industry conferences, training courses, professional associations and personal relationships

Source1: http://www.isect.com/html/info_leakage.html
Source2: http://www.changedetect.com/blog/competitive-intelligence-tools-first-steps-in-gathering-online-information-about-the-competition-1357/