It was a Saturday like any other, so this ubergeek ringed the nearest pizza chain for some tasty and salty carbohydrates. Imagine my surprise when I found that what arrived was a Pizza box which had Telefonica's logo all over it. First I thought it was a joke... not happy with giving me expensive and slow ADSL service, owning the local TV station responsible for airing that Big Brother menace, and not letting me choose another provider for the local loop, the incumbent telecomms behemoth was now getting into my food. This required further inspection.

Telefonica extends its claws even to the food we eat

Luckily, the pizza is still made by the pizza guys
Really, would you eat a BT or {insert former PTT here} Pizza? :)

I turned around the pizza box, and finally the familiar logo of the pizza chain was there... small, very small, one sixth of the total space of the glossy cardboard octagon. The top of the box advertised Telefonica's ADSL service, Speedy, with a content by which you can -in theory, I'm sceptical of contests :)- direct your own short film giving an innovative ending to the firm's current TV commercial and win the mind-blowing amount of... $32,000 greenbacks, or EUR 23,383, or 15,760 quid... in Argentina's pesos currency, of course.

Time to eat... that so familiar logo would raise anyone's blood pressure

This humble correspondent quickly turned on his CRT and tuned Telefonica's controlled TV station, but there was no special report about Telefonica's move into the food business. Nor was there any news report either about the firm being fined for $207m due to its "impeding competition on the Spanish broadband market for more than five years" in its home country, Spain. Strange world, indeed, telco monopolies getting into geeks' dinner.

I can report that the pizza -after throwing away the box- was not bad at all, that is, exactly the opposite of Telefonica

I decided to taste the pizza... and I have to report that the quality of the has not yet been affected by the Spanish Inquisition Telecomms Juggernaut. I will, however, seriously consider choosing another pizza chain, because something I will not stand for long is having the logo of a waved in front of my face while I'm about to have dinner.µ

L'INQs
Good, affordable Pizza for Gaucho Geeks, with annoying third party ads in the box
TelMex and Telefonica step on the gas pedal in Latin America
The Hacker's Diet: How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor nutrition.
Microsoft fatties lost 61,100 pounds
Telefonica fined $206.7m for rigging broadband market

See also:
INQUIRER hack 'misinformed' according to Telefonica exec
Lawrence Lessig speaks on Microsoft, Antritrust, Telecomms
Argentina ends 2006 with record-breaking e-Figures
Local Loop Unbundling still the 'Elephant in the Room'