PARIS (AFP) — Web regulators Thursday voted to allow the creation of thousands of new domain names, from .paris to .Pepsi, in one of the biggest shake-ups in Internet history, a French web official said.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board approved the change at its annual general meeting in Paris, according to Loic Damilaville, deputy head of the French domain name body, the AFNIC.

Currently all web addresses fall under one of some 250 top-level domain names: .country or .territory domains, and generic ones such as .com, .net and .org, .gov, and .edu.

Under the new system, the web's 1.3 billion users would be able from 2009 to buy an unlimited number of generic addresses based on common words, brands or company names, cities or proper names.

In addition, ICANN is looking at ways of blocking certain domain names based on security or moral grounds, he said.