Domain name overhaul proposed

The biggest changes to the internet in a decade could occur if plans to liberalise the address system are passed.

The strict rules on address systems could be relaxed on Thursday (June 26th) when the net's regulators will vote to decide if companies can turn their own brands into domain names.

At the moment domain names are limited to individual countries, such as .uk, institutional organisations, .org, and commerce, .com - however these new rules could see the launch of the suffix .xxx which has been restricted for years.

Dr Paul Twomey, chief executive of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), told the BBC that the proposals would allow groups and businesses to express their identities online.

"Like the United States in the 19th Century, we are in the process of opening up new real estate, new land, and people will go out and claim parts of that land and use it for various reasons they have," he said.

"It's a massive increase in the geography of the real estate of the internet."

ICANN is also attempting to switch to IPV6, which will enable a practically unlimited number of internet addresses - where as the current system, IPV4, has 4.2 billion available addresses, expected to run out by 2010 or 2011.