This seems overly sensationalized - the use of terms like 'infiltrate' and 'spy' are at the very least over to top to describe what is basically a secret-shoppe

This seems overly sensationalized - the use of terms like 'infiltrate' and 'spy' are at the very least over to top to describe what is basically a secret-shopper run. I'm legitimately curious - what 'trade secrets' could one possibly get by posing as a prospective customer? In my industry it's commonplace for our competitors to use shill resellers to buy our products for testing. It's annoying but nobody ever calls it spying or infiltrating - it's just 'competitive engineering' (unless they actually reverse engineer and steal some IP - that tends to involve lawyers and is incredibly rare).