When delegations from the 193 U.N. member nations meet this December in Dubai to consider the future of the ITU, the negotiators from United States and like-minded nations in Europe, the Americas and the Asian-Pacific region will attempt to beat back proposals that would significantly empower the organization with Internet oversight authority.

"In those three regions you have a largely consistent set of views," Verveer said.

But as a starting point to the negotiations, Verveer said that the United States and similar-minded countries had won an important victory in effectively defeating a proposal backed by Russia to abandon the model of the 1988 ITRs altogether and remake the ITU's authorities from scratch, giving the organization stronger oversight authority that critics warn would be a short walk to internationally sanctioned censorship.

"That effort has been turned back I think successfully," Verveer said. "The existing ITRs have been accepted as a framework for negotiations. There are no pending proposals to vest the ITU with direct Internet governance authority. Instead, thus far, traditional telecom issues such as roaming and fraud prevention have taken center stage."

But in addition to Russia, China, Iran and several other nations have signaled their interest in expanding centralized oversight of the Internet.