Brands should not feel restricted when applying for new domain names, according to an internet governance expert.

Milton Mueller, a professor at Syracuse University, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that companies can attempt to register anything as a domain name, meaning suffixes such as .music and .food could be created.

"What people are looking for are domain names that reflect their preference in some way. There's no reason to be restricted to .com, .org or .net," he explained.

His comments refer to the decision by the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) to dramatically increase the number of domain name endings from the current total of 22.

Applications for the new addresses, known as generic top-level domains, will be open from January 12th to April 12th 2012.

On announcing the news, chairman of Icann's board of directors Peter Dengate Thrush said the move will usher in a new age for the internet.