The adoption of RFIDs or smart tags just took a giant leap forward. Benetton has announced that it will start using RFIDs in the Sisley line of clothing it sells through its 5,000 stores world wide. Phillips has prepared 15 million smart tags for Benetton to use:

Phillips says its smart tags will be imperceptible to the wearer. They store information on the style, size and color of the garment and its path through the manufacturing and stock chain, said Karsten Ottenberg, senior vice president of Philips Semiconductors, based in Hamburg, Germany.

Because the ID is embedded in the clothes — it's an antenna-bearing chip smaller than a grain of rice that's attached to the clothes' labels — any item returned to the store automatically re-enters the inventory.

Since the chips contain no power source they can only transmit their data when within 3 feet of a receiver — either a handheld unit or a shelving monitor in a Benetton store or warehouse, Ottenberg said.

The ID tags have the capacity to store and release more information — although Ottenberg cautioned that the chips will store no data about the customer, and will be essentially useless after the garments leave the store.

Smart tags could potentially be used even after the sale is made -- if and when privacy concerns and technological obstacles are overcome:

For instance, a sales clerk might be tipped that a person in a pair of RFID-tagged slacks is a frequent customer. The salesperson could give that customer priority, and make sales suggestions based on the company's idea of clothes that match the slacks, Zwibel said.

Such scenarios could lead to protests over "spy clothes" on privacy grounds, said Wayne Madsen of the Electronic Privacy Information Center...

But the RFID tags could be programmed for other short-range tasks, like "talking" to a forthcoming Whirlpool washing machine to alert it to proper washing instructions, Zwibel said.

Retailing is about to get a lot more interesting.