ICANN Launches Whois lookup service

Brian Krebs is reporting on his blog that the long-awaited Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) has been launched. At the end of November, ICANN launched the system, which is intended to act as the primary data request node for participating registrars. Participation is optional at this time, but ICANN is asking all of its accredited registrars to sign up for the service.

ICANN clarifies that this doesn’t guarantee access to the data, nor can data be requested related to country-code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) such as .ca. However, their intention is to standardize the request process and their hope is that the RDRS system is another step in accomplishing that.