The article by O.A.Gorodov, Professor of St. Petersburg State University, Doctor of law, (Saint Petersburg, goro-dov@inbox.ru) is devoted to the analysis of the rules prohibiting unfair competition related to unlawful collection, use, disclosure of information constituting commercial or other secret protected by the law. According to the author, these rules do not fully reflect the doctrinal ideas of information of a confidential nature and have considerable difficulty in application in practice.