What dangers does computer communication pose to the economy?

One of the major dangers as demonstrated by the NSA and others monitoring emails and other information is the "Life" of a message. The message in whatever form, (email, text, phone call, financial transaction, teleconference, documents, whatever) can be easily kept and searched. That can be a problem for companies seeking confidentiality. It allows others to study patterns, determine people's and company's actions by studying their stored communication and using that information to compete against other companies. For example, a company is planning a new facility, people could look at real estate activity in the area to identify managers moving to the area. They could use shipping documents, bank records all kinds of stored records to identify patterns and unfairly compete.