As the effects of the Arab Spring -- a wide-ranging, decentralized wave of protests in which the Internet played a formative role -- continue to play out, McDowell warned against efforts by authoritarian regimes to use the ITU negotiations as a vehicle to turn the Internet into a "tyrannical walled garden" that can be used to "snuff out political dissent."

McDowell also expressed concern about another proposal that has been floated to expand the ITU's authority beyond its established purview over cross-border telephone issues to oversee IP addresses. He explained that backers of that idea have suggested IP addresses, through the conversion process of VoIP technology, could be a remedy to problems arising from a global shortfall of telephone numbers.

"What is left unsaid, however, is that potential ITU jurisdiction over IP addresses would enable it to regulate Internet services and devices with abandon," McDowell said. "IP addresses are a fundamental and essential component to the inner-workings of the Net. Taking their administration away from the bottom-up, non-governmental, multi-stakeholder model and placing it into the hands of international bureaucrats would be a grave mistake."

Other issues up for debate at the meeting in Dubai include proposals to implement some revenue-raising system to promote broadband expansion in developing nations. One idea that has been suggested -- and staunchly opposed by the United States -- would levy a per-click charge on some of the most popular destinations on the Web to subsidize broadband service in other nations, with Google, Facebook, iTunes and Netflix among the most popular targets.

Such proposals have given rise to what Verveer called a "unanimity of purpose" in opposing new ITU authorities among U.S. businesses that often find themselves at odds on matters of public policy, as well as lawmakers and other government officials, irrespective of party lines.