Website address plan under study

International computer experts are meeting in Switzerland in order to resolve conflicts over the registration of Internet website addresses.

They want to draw up guidelines to prevent the abuse of country code names, such as dot.uk for British sites, or dot.fr for French ones.

At present, different countries have different regulations covering the allocation of website addresses.

And the laws pertaining in one country do not extend to others.

While regulations governing who can set up an Internet website are very strict in Sweden for example, countries like Britain and Germany are completely open.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service