Ever been to Twitter.co.uk by mistake? You're one of about 3,000 people who do exactly that every day - and that might not be a problem for Twitter if it actually owned the domain twitter.co.uk.

Instead, it is owned by software developer Steve Crawford, who bought it in 2005 - before Twitter was even a twinkle in Jack Dorsey's eye. Crawford says he wanted to use the site for an accessibility software project - 'Talking Wordprocessor, Internet, Typing Tutor, Email Resources' - that later dried up, but since Twitter's massive growth post-Christmas boom he has seen traffic soar, along with a rather tedious admin problem.

The address 'Twitter.co.uk' isn't owned by Twitter

He says Twitter is effectively spamming him, albeit in a roundabout way. When new users register with Twitter they have to enter an email address, but Twitter doesn't ask users to confirm the address. For some bizarre reason, some people are using addresses @twitter.co.uk, which means Crawford keeps getting email from Twitter when any of those 'users' (either confused new users, or spam accounts) gets a new follower, or any other email update from Twitter. He's already had more than a hundred emails and gets a visitor every 24 seconds.

"As I understand it, they are breaking both UK and US anti-spam laws," Crawford writes on Twitter.co.uk. "I have contacted Twitter.com to try to resolve the problem but they have not responded to any of my emails. Let's be clear - I am blaming Twitter.com for allowing this to happen, not the individuals who have mistakenly typed in the wrong email address. Twitter.com are sending out the emails, they are responsible for the content of them and it is only Twitter.com who can fix the problem."

Crawford would click on the 'forgot password' option in the emails to change each user's settings and stop the emails, but isn't prepared to do that. Instead, he has detailed the problem on Twitter.co.uk and is pimping the site to advertisers in return for a donation to charity, which is a very noble way of exploiting a relatively high-accidental-traffic domain.

"I don't care much for all these advertising sites," Crawford told MediaGuardian. "I want Twitter to take me seriously but the first thing is just for them to acknowledge my existence. I want them to change the system - the email thing is bizarre. A huge bug. I can't believe no-one has picked up on it yet."

He also pointed out that Twitter is getting to the stage where it needs regional versions for different audiences.

What can Twitter do? Introduce email verification for one, answer Crawford's emails for another and - let's be honest - make him a decent offer for the domain. A note on the site say he doesn't want to sell, but maybe he's never seen the colour of Silicon Valley money before?

Come on Twitter - pull your finger out.