We've been waiting for the news for well over a year, but ICANN - the Internet regulator - has finally voted to allow non-Latin characters in domain names.

When the Internet first came to prominence, almost all of its users were English-speaking and those who weren't spoke languages based on Latin characters. Nowadays, more than half of the Internet's 1.6 billion users speak languages with non-Latin scripts.

This is important as it will pave the way for the registration of hundreds of millions of new domain names - and will be of particular importance to international companies who who will need to protect their brand overseas.