New domain names could come in mid-2008

New Internet addresses for general use could start appearing in the summer of 2008 .

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers invited public comment on procedures for creating new names, the first expansion for general use since 2000. Names added since then have been limited to specific regions or industries.

There are currently about 250 domain name suffixes, most of them for specific countries such as ".fr" for France. General-use names include ".com" and ".net."

In 2000, two years after its designation by the U.S. government as the authority for overseeing Internet naming policies, ICANN approved seven new names, but only ".info" and ".biz" were truly for general use.

ICANN solicited additional applications in 2004 and has approved six regional or industry-specific names, such as ".travel" and ".asia,"

Also added were .jobs, .mobi, .cat, and .tel.

The new addresses are likely to be in English.

On the Net:

ICANN information on new names:

http://www.icann.org/topics/new-gtld-strategy-faq.htm