Almost as interesting as the investigation into agency pricing, I think, is the news today regarding the territorial restrictions imposed by the Premiere League on football broadcasts, which have been used to try and stop people buying a cheaper subscription from a different country in Europe.
There's an article about this at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...-sports-rights and I've blogged about it at GoneDigital.net
Essentially, if the selling of rights for TV by territory within Europe is anti-competitive, surely so should be the selling of books in the same way.
Practically, I don't see that making a massive difference to the largely mono-lingual UK readership, but depending on the final outcome of this case, it might perhaps signal that that time has come to open up stores like the UK Kindle store and WH Smiths to buyers of eBooks from other EU countries.
(And, potentially, for those in countries with lower VAT rates on eBooks that the UK's 20% to sell books back to UK readers)