In the last 10 days I have had three different conversations with businesses that are using the social networks to gather commercial intelligence.

• A corporate finance team in the middle of due diligence efforts that is tracking conversations on Twitter amongst staff and customers of a target investment
• A Westminster lobby journalist tracking blog posts and tweets from prospective MPs in a bid to spot stories and build up candidate profiles in the run up to the election
• A tech company tracking the product development efforts of a competitor by monitoring tweets by members of the product development team

The very act of socialising an organisation means individuals share their motivations and information that can be tracked and used by third parties to competitive advantage. Be warned.