Revolutionary change to web addressing

An international body in Paris has voted to change the way web addresses are named - opening up a potential gold rush in domain name buying.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced a relaxation of restrictions on naming, so that rather than just '.com', '.org', and '.co.uk', we could see suffixes like '.insurance' or '.london'.

"The potential here is huge. It represents a whole new way for people to express themselves on the net," said president and CEO of ICANN, Dr Paul Twomey.

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

The first applications will not begin being accepted until a final version of the plan has been given the green light by the ICANN board - probably early in 2009.

Non-Roman characters, like Asian or Arabic letters, will also be available to use for the first time, which was hailed as "very important" for the internet in countries that use these languages.

This has led to speculation that the Internet may become less English-dominated - making it less centralised as a result - although as has been the history of the internet, the future is difficult to predict.