20 Jun 2011

Decision opens way to domain name slather

10:33 pm on 20 June 2011

Global internet body Icann has voted to allow the creation of new website domain suffixes, in the biggest change for the online world in years.

The BBC reports the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers plans to dramatically increase the number of domain endings from the current 22.

Internet address names will end with almost any word and be in any language.

Icann will begin taking applications next year, with corporations and cities expected to be among the first.

"Icann has opened the internet's addressing system to the limitless possibilities of the human imagination," Icann president and chief executive officer, Rod Beckstrom, told the BBC. "No one can predict where this historic decision will take us."