The regulatory body which controls domain names has voted to increase the domain suffixes from 22.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will offer hundreds of additions to the likes of .gov, .org and .com including .coke, .apple and .bbc, it has announced on its website.

But opting for a suffix such as .news or .stories (news.stories anyone?) will cost you a significant sum. To avoid so-called cyber-squatting and the buying up and selling on of domain suffixes, ICANN is charging companies $185,000 (£114,000) to apply, the BBC is reporting. Applications for will be accepted from 12 January 2012 to 12 April 2012.

The so-called called generic top-level domains (gTLDs) “will change the way people find information on the internet and how businesses plan and structure their online presence”, a statement on ICANN’s website states. “Internet address names will be able to end with almost any word in any language, offering organisations around the world the opportunity to market their brand, products, community or cause in new and innovative ways.”

“ICANN has opened the internet’s naming system to unleash the global human imagination. Today’s decision respects the rights of groups to create new top level domains in any language or script. We hope this allows the domain name system to better serve all of mankind,” said Rod Beckstrom, president and chief executive officer of ICANN.

The new domain names will therefore benefit users of other languages such as Arabic, Chinese and Russian.