At the referral of a friend several years ago, I joined the GLG group to offer myself as an expert.  I have a lot of knowledge of a lot of technologies, and companies.

I got my invitation, filled it out, took their ethics training (every year), set my hourly rate, and waited.

Every single query I have received was a request that seemed to imply that they wanted details of my employer’s business.

Then I read this in the NY Times, and I am happy that I have applied the smell test of ethics to the queries.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/new-breed-of-sac-capital-hire-is-at-ce…

Increasingly, these “expert networks” are being implicated in insider trading scandals. Perhaps I was not being to paranoid and reading too much into the queries.