Longtime telecommunications consultant Tom Allibone recently appointed himself an “FCC Deputy,” looking out for consumers in the looming transition to digital television. “Deputy Tom” has posted a story online about the trials and tribulations of getting his rural New Jersey home ready for the February 2009 switchover by full-power TV broadcasters from their traditional analog signals to all digital. Allibone’s story should be required reading for the government officials at the Federal Communications Commission and the Commerce Department in charge of the switchover, which will affect millions of Americans who rely on free, over-the-air television. Ditto for electronics makers and retailers, as well as the TV broadcasting industry.

It’s the stuff of a science fiction thriller: A big company shadowing your every move on the Internet, compiling a detailed profile of every web site you visit, how long you stay, and what you did while you were there. But this nightmarish scenario is all too real – and it is playing out right now. A number of small Internet service providers are already stealthily tracking their customers as they surf the web and sharing that information with online advertising firms. And it gets worse.

There are times when killing the messenger -- or rather the messaging consultant -- might be the best thing for everyone involved. Case in point: the peculiar decision by the federal bureaucrats in charge of educating the public on the looming transition to digital television to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to hire the ethically-challenged Ketchum Communications Inc. as their communications and "messaging" guru. Ketchum, you may recall, was at the center of two of worst government public relations debacles in recent memory.