New internet domain names in 2009: ICANN

People surf the Internet in Beijing in 2007. Internet users should soon be able to use new domain names such as .love, .paris or .bank if one of the world wide web's biggest shakeups is approved this week as expected by the web regulator ICANN.

Internet users should soon be able to use new domain names such as .love, .paris or .bank if one of the world wide web's biggest shakeups is approved this week as expected by the web regulator ICANN.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which opened its annual general meeting Monday in Paris, was due to vote on the new names this week.

"Apart from the .com, .net or .org, the 1.3 billion web users will be able from early 2009 to acquire generic addresses by lodging common words such as .love, .hate or .city or proper names," ICANN president Paul Twomey told French newspaper Les Echos.

The meeting has gathered more than 1,300 delegates from 130 countries.

ICANN, a non-profit organization based in southern California, oversees the assignment of domain names and internet protocol addresses that help computers communicate.

ICANN

Š 2008 AFP

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