Amidst all the drama surrounding ICANN’s Los Angeles meeting (Vint Cerf’s exit from the ICANN Board, protests over the free expression implications of its new gTLD policy, the Whois-privacy debate and steps toward new multilingual domain names) an important signal about the future of ICANN was almost lost in the shuffle. The U.S. Commerce Department announced a full-scale, public review of the global Internet governance regime’s status. Interested parties have until 15 February 2008 to submit their comments. This initiative must be perceived in combination with renewed signs of “enhanced cooperation” – the WSIS-inspired code words for European demands that the U.S. accommodate their concerns about unilateral U.S. control of the Internet’s root. Together it faintly signals some kind of movement on the thorniest issue in global internet governance. Movement in exactly which direction remains unclear, but pressure from BRIC countries in the UN Internet Governance Forum certainly plays role in it.   more »