Opening up domain names to end in any word and be created in any language will only create confusion, fraud, and phishing. - Inspired by Brad Stone and Doreen Carvajal, The New York Times

Last week ICANN approved a massive change to the Internet's address system. Companies, organizations and countries can now apply for domain names that end in pretty much anything. www.fastcompany.com could become www.fastcompany.magazine and www.parishilton.com could become www.parishilton.paris. Right now, domain names are restricted to about 20 suffixes -- .com (for companies), .org (for organizations) and identifying labels for countries like .uk.

If several parties want one name — for instance .grocery — an auction will be held to settle the dispute.

The note has raised grave doubts, with people worrying that it will create confusion – the wide array of possible addresses could be hard to remember – and also encourage cyber squatters, who buy and sell domain names solely to make a profit.

"It could also sow confusion in the minds of Web users, create a host of new ways to exploit the Web addressing system and start a wave of legal skirmishes over applications to register trademarks — .coke, for example," write Brad Stone and Doreen Carvajal of The New York Times.

Another big, less controversial, vote passed was approving domain names to be registered in different scripts, like Chinese and Hindi.