The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has voted in favour of relaxing controls on the classification of domain names, opening the door to a new generation of customised web addresses.

A unanimous vote by the regulator's members at a public meeting in Paris means that individuals and organisations will now be able to adopt domain names based on any combination of letters. Until now addresses have been limited by geography, as in .co.uk, for example, or by the type of organisation using the domain.

Individuals and companies will soon be allowed to register a domain based on words of their choice, as long as a "business plan and technical capacity" can be demonstrated to authorities.

At today's meeting, ICANN also approved plans to allow the use of Asian and Arabic characters in addresses, reducing the dominance of Roman typography.

The changes will be introduced next year.