I've always been a little suspicious of RFID technology because of the obvious privacy concerns. Today, I'm changing my tune.

My colleague Adam Thierer has written extensively in this space about the danger of U.S. policymakers extending broadcast regulation to other visual media, such as cable, satellite and even the Internet. That could become a reality in Europe by the end of the year, as I pointed out this week in a Progress Snapshot titled "Regulation Without Frontiers: Europe Shows U.S. Policymakers How Not to Embrace Convergence."

The FCC just released the Policy Statement it adopted on August 5 that sets forth the four Net Neutrality principles that the agency says it will incorporate into ongoing policymaking activities. Here it is.

Not to be a spoilsport, but here is what makes the FCC's action problematic, perhaps especially legally, when it goes to apply the principles. The Policy Statement says: "[T]he Commission has jurisdiction necessary to ensure that providers of telecommunications for Internet access or Internet Protocol-enabled (IP-enabled) services are operated in a neutral manner." In Brand X, it was the Commission's position, affirmed by the Supreme Court with a heavy dose of deference, that "providers of telecommunications for Internet access" are, in fact, "information service" providers, and that the telecommunications and information services components of a broadband offering are so integrated that they cannot be separated for purposes of determining what constitutes the "offering". Justice Scalia, in dissent, ridiculed this view, finding two separable "offerings", telecommunications and information services.

We here at PFF are apparently not the only ones with some serious reservations about the new House Commerce Committee discussion draft. (Ray, Randy, Kyle and I have all released essays this week about this telecom reform effort and found serious problems with it). But our friends over at the Discovery Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation are also sounding alarm bells.

In the debate over property rights, some would have us believe that the "haves" are all big, impersonal, multinational corporations that use their vast holdings to shackle the "little guy." (Think local telephone companies resisting past regulators' efforts to lease their networks to competitors at bargain basement rates.) Yet property rights can just as easily serve as a bulwark against oppression to the extent it empowers individuals to break the bonds of what is expected and chart their own course. I was reminded of this when I attended "Flyin' West" by the True Colors Theater Company, the resident company of Washington's historic Lincoln Theater.

Solveig Singleton and I recently released a short analysis of the ongoing ICANN dispute over the proposed ".xxx" top-level domain (TLD). In our PFF Progress Snapshot, we point out that important issues are raised by the recent effort of the United States to intervene at the last moment and interfere with the creation of this new TLD. I encourage you to read our paper but before you do so, if you need some good background on this issue, I highly recommend that you first visit the Internet Governance Project web page and speficially look at the petition that Prof. Milton Mueller and several other ICANN experts put together on this issue.

Today, Cingular announced it has teamed up with Dell to offer its version of high-speed wireless technology in notebooks. This comes on the heels of Verizon reaching agreements to offer its BroadbandAccess in laptops by Dell, HP and Lenovo.

Earlier this week, Verizon announced that it has reached deals with computer manufacturers Dell, Lenovo and HP to offer its 3G wireless technology as an integrated option in laptop computers. Using EV-DO technology, Verizon is currently offering its BroadbandAccess service in 60 markets across the U.S., including its recent launch in San Francisco, where the mayor has designs of a municipal Wi-Fi network. This move comes shortly after announcing a 25% price cut for BroadbandAccess last month. Verizon, along with other cellular providers Sprint and Cingular, are ramping up their deployment of 3G wireless broadband networks.

Back in January 2004, as VoIP was catching on big-time, I wrote a piece for CNET entitled "The Metaphysics of VoIP." I predicted, correctly I think, that much of the coming debate over how VoIP should be regulated under the existing legal regime "would be downright metaphysical." And I pointed out that the dictionary definition of metaphysical means:(1) "of or relating to the transcendent or to the reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses"; (2) "supernatural"; or (3) "highly abstract or abstruse." Of course, in the regulatory world, not only philosophers, but lawyers, find good paying work on metaphysical playgrounds.

So, in another CNET piece, this one published in October 2004 and entitled "Calling for Regulatory Overall Bit by Bit," I called for a new communications law framework that would not be based on what I called "highly abstruse techno-functional constructs." I said such a regime would lead to continuing disputes about the boundaries of service categories that determine regulatory consequences. And I concluded: "What we need is a new market-oriented regulatory model, not a replacement regime based on another set of techno-functional definitions."

Regretfully, the discussion draft released by the House Commerce Committee staff late last week is a framework built on regulatory techno-functional definitions--classifications of BITS providers, VoIP providers, and broadband video providers with attendant regulatory consequences.

In previous posts earlier this year, I warned that efforts by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to block the proposed acquisition of video rental firm Hollywood Video by Blockbuster Inc. would likely lead to the demise of both companies in the long run. Well, excuse me while I toot my own horn for a moment, but it appears that I was likely right, and sooner than I expected.

Joe Flint and Kate Kelly report in today's Wall Street Journal ("New Signs of Strain for Blockbuster" p. B5) that "Blockbuster Inc. is facing new pressures as signs increase that a sharp decline in the video-rental market is putting a strain on the company's finances." The company's stock prices fell by 9.7% on Friday, hitting a 52-week low of $4.60 per share. This came on news that Movie Gallery Inc., the industry's #2 firm, was reporting that sales at many of its stores were expected to drop by 8-10% this quarter.

What's happening is clear: technological and market evolution are finally catching up with this old business and is about to wipe it from the face of the Earth. With all the new sources of competition out there--Netflix and cheap DVDs at WalMart, online movie download services, cable and satellite movie channels plus video-on-demand, telco entry into the video business, all sorts of handheld mobile media gadgets like the PlayStation Portable, and so on--its no wonder that Blockbuster and others in this sector are struggling.