Net regulators are meeting in California to agree a new batch of web address suffixes so that more permutations can be added to the decreasing stock of dot.com addresses.

The Internet Corporation for assigned names are considering up to 44 top-level domain names including .biz, .health, .travel, .xxx and .kids. Generic suffixes included for personal web pages are .per and .nom.

There are a variety of reasons for introducing new names and one reason is that all the good names are taken and people want more. It was stressed that new domain names would be introduced responsibly and also should reduce cybersquatting, those that have obtained domain names of public figures such as Madonna and George W Bush.

By creating additional domain names should add more competition and diversity and possibly make it easier for searching for information on the internet.

The existing internet naming system of dot.com, .org, .net and country codes such as .uk, have remained relatively unchanged since its inception in the mid 1980s.