The reason is that scores of competitors consistently over several years have charged Google with the same illegal practice: theft for anti-competitive advantage.

FORBES: The Evidence Google's Systematic Theft is Anti-Competitive

In many cases there is no obvious direct state involvement in the theft or illegal export of controlled technology.

FORBES: Entrepreneurial Espionage - Made in China

But Shell has previously blamed "widespread and continual criminal activity, including sabotage, theft and illegal refining, that causes the vast majority of oil spills".

BBC: Shell in Nigeria: Dutch court to rule in pollution case

She asked the court to reduce the charge to common theft or illegal possession, saying Gabriele had high moral motives although he had committed an illegal act.

BBC: Pope ex-butler Paolo Gabriele jailed for theft

The workshop stressed the importance of Database's objective as an instrument to protect cultural heritage, by fighting against looting, theft, illegal export and import in the light of the UNESCO Convention of 1970 on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and of the UNESCO Convention of 2001 on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage.

UNESCO: CULTURE

Channel 4 said it "was as valid a subject for television drama as any other illegal act, such as murder, theft and blackmail, watched by millions on television every week".

BBC: john simm

"Botnet mining is fundamentally theft of private property, illegal and unethical, " Jeff Garzik, a bitcoin developer told the BBC, adding that bitcoin miners had battled botnets for years, seeing them as a "cost and a burden" they just had to deal with.

BBC: Bitcoin miners hit back at cyber-thieves

The entertainment industry is arguing that business models predicated on the theft of intellectual property should be declared illegal.

ECONOMIST: Peer-to-peer

The issue was raised again later on by Labour frontbencher Gloria De Piero, who told the Commons that much of the vandalism, anti-social behaviour and theft from war memorials was related to the illegal metal trade.

BBC: Labour calls for action on metal theft