Valley must join effort to stop UN from governing the Internet

[Commentary] It's Silicon Valley's worst nightmare: China and Russia want to turn control of the Internet over to the United Nations, according to Federal Communications Commission member Robert McDowell and other tech experts.

"It's a potential catastrophe," San Jose Rep. Zoe Lofgren proclaimed. "I've raised alarms about it, but nobody seems to be paying any attention. We're going to need the kind of outcry that occurred in SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and more to turn this around." The State Department's coordinator for international communications policy, Philip Verveer, downplayed the risk, calling it a "low-probability, high-consequence circumstance." "High consequence" gets our attention. Silicon Valley needs to pull out all of the stops to block a diplomatic disaster that could give despots and dictators power over the greatest open communication tool the world has ever known. The first task is to help the State Department apply the kind of pressure that spelled SOPA's demise. The proposed U.S. law to rein in copyright infringement would have harmed the Internet as a business and communication tool. The Internet now has 2 billion users and is adding millions more every week. Some tech experts believe that it will be next to impossible to maintain the status quo, given the extent of the issues. The goal of the Dubai conference should be to tweak the current regulations to alleviate legitimate international concerns while maintaining independence of the Internet. The United States won't be able to veto whatever emerges from Dubai, so it needs to be fully engaged in the game. Valley industry needs to speak up.