The Internet will change beyond recognition by as early as next year if a vote to relax domain name rules is approved. Wide Web will decide at a meeting in Paris whether it should open up the strict rules governing top-level domains, the technical term for the suffixes that appear at the end of internet addresses such as “.org” and “.com”.

In a separate but equally significant move for the developing world, the regulators will also begin allowing new scripts into cyberspace, which, until now, has been dominated by the Roman alphabet.

Although web pages support non-Roman scripts, there are currently no provisions to incorporate them into the address system that navigates users to specific web pages. Critics say that this stops billions of people in the developing world from accessing the internet, because they can only read their own script.

If the plans are approved they could also pave the way for companies to use their own names as suffixes by the middle of 2009, meaning that Microsoft.com, for instance, could become Microsoft.microsoft.

Individuals would also be able to subscribe to any number of terms to use in their own internet addresses. The pornography industry, which accounts for around 12 per cent of all internet content, is also hoping to be allowed to use the .xxx domain name. Its representatives argue that the suffix would make it easier for customers to find sites, while giving those who do not wish to view porn a greater capacity to block it.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), the not-for-profit organisation that has regulated domain names since 1998, has spent over (pounds sterling)10m trying to find a way to expand the accessibility of the Net after countries in the developing world complained it was overly dominated by developed nations.

In order to recoup the cost of the negotiations, sources say that companies will be expected to pay out a “six-figure sum” to register their own name.

There will also be discussions to include a fast-track system for some of the most commonly used scripts such as Arabic, Mandarin and Cyrillic.

Emily Taylor, a delegate attending the conference in Paris on behalf of Nominet, one of the world’s largest internet registries, said including non-Roman scripts could be a major turning point in the history of the internet.

“There are currently 1.5 billion people using the internet, which means that there are a good 4.5 billion people who are not doing so,” she said. “These people are not from Europe or America n most of them will be from developing world nations where the Roman script is meaningless.” Some have expressed fears that the creation of new suffixes could confuse internet users, but others believe that the industry will regulate itself.

“The .com suffix is so well established that I don’t think many companies will want to replace it,” said Duncan Bell, managing editor of T3 technology magazine. “Microsoft.microsoft is not only harder to remember, it takes longer to type.”

By arrangement with The Independent