ICANN’s CEO has published an open letter encouraging the community to spread the word about its new Registration Data Request Service.
Sally Costerton explained (pdf) that RDRS is a “free, global, one-stop shop ticketing system” that hooks up people seeking private Whois data with the relevant registrar.
“I appreciate your attention to this new service and ask that you share this information with the relevant stakeholders in your organization,” she concludes.
The plea comes after the late-November launch of the system and the revelation that the system currently has far from blanket coverage from registrars.
“Use of the RDRS is voluntary, but I’m pleased to let you know that we have strong participation from registrars already,” Costerton wrote.
Since I published a blog post three weeks ago naming 25 large registrars not participating in RDRS, only Markmonitor has chosen to sign up, adding another one million domains to RDRS’s footprint.
But it turns out Chinese registrar Alibaba, which I was unable to check due to a bug or downtime somewhere, definitely is not participating, so there are still 25 out of the 40 registrars with over a million domains that are not participating.
Usage on the demand side is not known, but ICANN says it will publish regular monthly progress reports.
The RDRS is considered a pilot. It will run for at least two years before ICANN figures out whether it’s worth keeping.
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