From 1718 to 1720 France launched a systematic effort to recruit English woolens workers, glass makers, clock and watch makers, ship wrights, and especially metallurgists. The recruiter encountered a characteristic of British industry: the division of labour. Workers only knew their own small portion of the process. This made the task too costly and inefficient. It’s easy to call the this industrial espionage due to the predatory “hiring away” by France, but the next two are not such clear-cut examples of industrial espionage.
In 1764 and 1765 the French monarch dispatched Gabriel-Jean Jars to visit English mines, smelters, and foundries. Amazingly, he was well received. His reports are used today by historians for the detailed descriptions of the industrial techniques he witnessed.
Insensible to international competition, the British Board of Longitude allowed French visitors to examine the revolutionary marine clocks of John Harrison in 1769. Harrison, quite rightly, flew into a rage when he learned of this.
Competitive Intelligence or Industrial Espionage?
These last two examples raise the question, is it industrial espionage if you knowingly give the data to the competition when they openly ask for it? Were the last two models for early competitive intelligence?
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