The United Nations will be meeting in Dubai to make a decision - Should the UN be granted control over the Internet?

The high profile meeting will include key members of the U.S. government and private sector firms with lawmakers to meet on Thursday to argue that the U.S. should work to defeat the proposal, which they consider a dangerous breach of existing norms.

The Internet is regulated in what’s called a “multi-stakeholder” model, with various private and public organizations each playing specific roles in keeping the its wheels spinning. If that setup is changed, that could risk the entire structure of the internet argues the panel.

“A top-down, centralized, international regulatory overlay is antithetical to the architecture of the Net, which is a global network of networks without borders,” wrote FCC Commissioner and panel member Robert McDowell in the Wall Street Journal. “No government, let alone an intergovernmental body, can make engineering and economic decisions in lightning-fast Internet time.”

Some Internet privacy experts are concerned that giving censorship-heavy nations such as China more say in Internet regulation would have disastrous consequences for online free speech.

“Maybe it bothers you that the U.S. controls these major keys to the Internet, but I think it’s a good thing,” wrote Larry Seltzer for Byte. “Without control of these critical facilities, no international group of dictators can really exert much control outside of their own boundaries.”

The House subcommittee panel will be broadcast via the web at 10:15 a.m. ET on Thursday, May 31