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I am based in the UK and I have run the opendomesday.org website as a free, non-profit history site for many years.

When I originally built the site, about 8 years ago, I registered it at domesdaymap.co.uk. After a couple of years, I decided a .org domain was more appropriate for the project since it is non-profit. For several years I paid for the .co.uk address and redirected it to the .org address.

In about 2016 I decided I didn't want to pay for the .co.uk address any more, since all it was doing was redirecting, so let it lapse.

Now I find that someone has re-registered the http://domesdaymap.co.uk address. This is not in itself a problem, but the problem is that they have set up a mirror of all my content there.

What can I do about this? The copied content has my name on, and people are contacting me to tell me that the content is broken (which it is).

I don't mind someone else owning that domain, but I do mind my content being on it and being broken.

I have tried contacting the registered owner of the .co.uk domain without success.

What can I do?

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  • My first thoughts are "fraud, copyright, and this is specific legal advice" but I'm not confident enough on any of that to answer or vote.
    – Stackstuck
    Dec 30, 2018 at 3:10
  • The first place I would go is filling an ICANN complaint.
    – Ron Beyer
    Dec 30, 2018 at 4:52
  • Thanks @RonBeyer. It's not the use of the domain name that I object to, it's the content of the site - do you think ICANN is appropriate?
    – Richard
    Dec 30, 2018 at 19:07

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If they are reusing your content then that is copyright violation.

If they are holding themself out to be you then that is the tort of passing off. If they are doining it for financial gain then that is also criminal fraud.

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