I thought of this after reading
Grog's post but as it was slightly different i didn't want to derail discussion on his post so made a new one. This could possibly have been suggested, i dunno.
Basically along the same idea but......
How about an in game scan request not based on alliances but more general? That way it would open it up to everybody (mostly new, possibly unallied players).
Maybe people could choose in their preferences whether they would receive requests from other planets to do scans (or possibly have to research this as a part of the waves tech tree? .....or something)
The co-ords would be hidden along with the results of the scan, just a success or unsuccessful notification. The planet that did it would get a resource bonus (basically get paid for it) and the one that requested it would get what they wanted too
That way you do away with the need for IRC and anybody else gathering intel from your request also because the scan details are all missing.