supervised. $ ^{9} $ In California Retail Liquor Dealers Ass'n v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc., the Court struck down a California statute because, although the price fixing restraint was clearly expressed as state policy, the state neither set the prices nor regulated the reasonableness of the price schedules. Had California's program completely controlled the distribution of liquor within the state, that comprehensive regulation would have been exempt from the Sherman Act under the state-action doctrine. $ ^{10} $ Thus, state legislation that appears inconsistent with federal antitrust law can survive preemption if it qualifies under the state action exemption doctrine.

It is interesting to note a change in direction of US policy in the area of competition exemptions and the state action exemption in particular. As early as 1978, Robert Bork saw an enormous proliferation of regulatory and licensing authorities in the US and he argued that this would damage the US economy if allowed unchecked, thus recognizing the importance of competition advocacy in the regulatory process in the US. $ ^{11} $ The FTC's recent State Action Task Force has had successes in identifying this problem. $ ^{12} $ It noted that states should be prevented from acting opportunistically towards one another, and that this was an important part of the federal process. One of the recommendations of this task force was to introduce the explicit definition of a market participant (for whom there would not be a state-action exemption).

The current transitions from regulation to competition come at an interesting time in communications history in terms of technological innovation and its influence on the comparative process.

### 3. New Communications Economy

In the 21st century, the way information is delivered to consumers is undergoing a rapid and total change. People are organizing themselves around information and content, and less on materials and delivery. In this age, downward pressure on delivery costs brought about by the costless delivery of information over the internet and e-mail is almost total. This has caused a shift to the actual content – a complete reversal from the McLuhanesque “medium is the message”. It is hard to explain the full impact of the information revolution. Suffice it to say that cost reductions brought about by the printing press were of the order of 1,000. Cost reductions brought about as a result of the invention of the microprocessor are of the order of 10 million. The printing press led to the industrial revolution as the microprocessor has led to the information revolution, but the impact of the microprocessor will be far greater. In a speech in Davos (2006) to the World Economic Forum, Professor Larry Summers noted that we were currently living through the third revolution of the last thousand years (the renaissance and the industrial revolution being the first two).

In many ways, there is a new communications economy which applies to the way that all manner of products are transported across borders. In this new communications economy, the activities of a telecommunications provider, carrying information across the e-mail, or a mail carrier