A complete overhaul of the way in which people navigate the internet has been given the go-ahead in Paris.

The net's regulator, Icann, voted unanimously to relax the strict rules on so-called "top-level" domain names, such as .com or .uk.


Country appeal

Icann has been working towards opening up the 25-year-old net addresses for nearly six years.

At the moment, top-level domains (TLDs) are currently limited to individual countries, such as .uk (UK) or .it (Italy), as well as to commerce, .com, and to institutional organisations, such as .net, or .org.

The .com suffix is the most popular and most costly TLD.

To get around the restrictions, some companies have used the current system to their own ends.

For example, the Polynesian island nation Tuvalu, has leased the use of the .tv address to many television firms.

Under the new plans, domain names can be based on any string of letters.

Individuals will be able to register a domain based on their own name, for example, as long as they can show a "business plan and technical capacity".

Companies will be able to secure domain names based on their intellectual property.

The result could be thousands or even millions of new addresses.

"The most likely new TLDs to be pushed into the Icann process are those that have been under development for some time now - the geo-TLDs such as .cym for Wales, .sco for Scotland, .ldn for London, .nyc for New York and so on," explained Marcus Eggensperger, of Lycos Webhosting.

so what does this mean in a practicle sense

Does this mean I could get a .leon address?