The FT was never a problem for the old Press Complaints Commission. Indeed, it was never of much relevance there: playing no committed role, leaving the shaping of PCC policy to others. Something of a pious pink Joe on the sidelines.

So the news that it won't be joining the Independent Press Standards Organisation (the new independent regulator) but is instead opting for a mini-variant on the in-house scheme the Guardian and Observer have been operating for years isn't earth-shattering. It merely leaves the regulation of the industry, whether chartered or not, one voice short of a chorus.

But there is one point about the decision that is significant. It has been taken because – with shrinking print sales but rapidly expanding digital reach – the Financial Times is transforming itself into global information enterprise. So what's the rationale for regulation in one, legally idiosyncratic country called Britain?

And that, in turn, must be a factor for Mail Online – notching up 179.8 million monthly browsers in March, 123.5 million of them overseas – and for the Guardian, surging to 102 million, with 68.6 million uniques outside the UK?

The plain fact for the Guardian (and its Pulitzer prize) is that without an American web base and protected by an American legal framework, it would have had the deepest problems in publishing Snowden's revelations. Britain alone is hostile judicial, governmental, political and regulatory territory.

This doesn't mean that the Guardian, and the Independent, won't join Ipso in the end. But it does show how rapidly the debate moves on, faster than Lord Justice Leveson can reach for his wig.