A December ITU treaty-writing meeting in Dubai, the World Conference On International Telecommunications, could include efforts from Russia, China and other countries to impose new regulations on the Internet, witnesses told the communications subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.

"The open Internet has never been at higher risk than it is now," said Vinton Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google. "A new international battle is brewing -- a battle that will determine the future of the Internet."

Cerf, co-developer of the TCP/IP standard, urged U.S. policymakers to resist attempts at the ITU meeting to regulate the Internet through the U.N. and to give dictatorial countries more "top-down" control over Internet content. "If all of us -- from Capitol Hill to corporate headquarters to Internet cafés in far-off villages -- don't pay attention to what's going on, users worldwide will be at risk of losing the open and free Internet that has brought so much to so many," he said.

Officials from Russia and other countries have pushed in the past for the ITU to take Internet governance away from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and other organizations, but there are no current proposals to overhaul Internet governance during the December meeting, said Philip Verveer, deputy assistant secretary of state and coordinator for international communications and information policy at the U.S. Department of State.

More of the focus for the December meeting seems to be on countries generating new revenue from Internet services, including per-click or traffic transmission taxes and roaming fees, Verveer said. Challenges to the current multistakeholder model of Internet governance could still come up, but are unlikely to pass, he said.