Nominet releases full version of reverse whois system.
Nominet just released a full production version of what essentially amounts to a reverse whois tool for .uk domain names.
[Update: the service has been around for a while but Nominet just released a new version, including similarity searching and email alerts.]
Public Register Search Service lets users search for domain names registered by a particular legal entity and/or those of a similar name.
This is very similar to what DomainTools offers with its reverse whois aka registrant lookup, although in this case the data is coming directly from the registry and only works for .uk domain names.
Nominet says the tool is designed for:
-establishing or defending intellectual property rights
-maintaining your domain portfolio
-gathering information for domain arbitration
-academic research
-detecting and protecting against crime
-government functions and administration of justice
-detecting and preventing against the use of false identities
The service costs £400+ VAT per year and is available for anyone in the European Economic Area (EEA).
A beta version of the tool was released last fall.
Jeff says
I’m pretty sure that this has been available for about 5 years now:
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20060813141649/http://www.nominet.org.uk/other/prss/
Jim Davies says
PRSS has been around for a very long time – it is not a new service. It is a commonly used in .uk domain name disputes – e.g. complainants use it to review a respondent’s portfolio of .uk domains, in order to try to establish a pattern of abusive registrations.
@Andrew – I would be interested to know whether you came across this by chance, or is the PRSS being promoted by Nominet?
Andrew Allemann says
Jim,
Upon reading Nominet’s release again, it appears that what they are promoting is a new version of the service.
http://www.nominet.org.uk/registrars/systems/Plannedchanges/releasenotes/april2011/
Basil says
You can use Reverse Get ( http://reverseget.com ) as an alternative to reverse whois. In most cases, Reverse Get allows you to find a list of sites of the same owner knowing just one of them. By the way, it works even if whois information is hidden using Whois Protect.