Is ourworldindata.org legit or a scam?
Our World in Data is a globally recognized, non-profit research publication with a decade-long history of providing open-access scientific data.
Analysis Summary
No threats detected
All checks passed. This site appears legitimate — but always stay alert for phishing even on trusted domains.
Website Preview
Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site. See full visual analysis →
Visual Screenshot Analysis
We capture a fresh screenshot of the live page and ask a vision model to look for scam visual patterns — fake trust badges, countdown timers, overlay pop-ups, and visual clones of legitimate brands.
No scam visual patterns detected
The screenshot shows a fully-rendered, professional educational website with no visual indicators of scam patterns or malicious intent.
What our vision model saw
6 signalsProfessional academic layout with consistent branding for Our World in Data
High-quality data visualizations and charts consistent with educational content
Standard non-profit elements including a donation button and mission statement
Standard cookie consent banner with clear options to reject or accept
No urgency tactics, fake trust badges, or suspicious pop-ups detected
Functional search bar and navigation menu for research topics
Brand Impersonation
medium confidenceThe page mentions or styles itself as OpenAI / ChatGPT, but is hosted on a domain that is not an official OpenAI / ChatGPT property. A login form was also detected — this combination is a classic credential-harvest setup.
MT Intelligence
The domain has been active for over 12 years and is operated by the Global Change Data Lab, a registered UK charity. Our analysis shows the site is widely cited by academic institutions and major media outlets. While our automated crawler noted a brand reference to MT Intelligence, this is a false positive caused by the site's extensive research articles about artificial intelligence. All technical signals, including a clean sweep from our antivirus network and high global traffic rankings, confirm this is a legitimate educational platform. There are no indications of phishing, malware, or deceptive practices.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for ourworldindata.org, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- ourworldindata.org is the official website of Our World in Data (OWID), a scientific online publication founded by Max Roser in 2013 and affiliated with the University of Oxford's Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development.
- Published and maintained by Global Change Data Lab, a UK registered charity (1186433, active since 2019) and company (11725483, active since 2018), with up-to-date reporting; 2024 income primarily from donations (£4.13m of £4.24m total).
- Non-profit organization; all charts, articles, and data are free, open access, and openly licensed (CC BY). Cited widely in research, media, and by governments; millions of monthly users.
- No scam reports, fraud complaints, or phishing associations found across web searches, Reddit, or review sites. Positive mentions emphasize transparency, credibility, and data quality.
- The site publishes extensive content on AI, including OpenAI's GPT models, ChatGPT usage statistics, and AI incidents/controversies; the "Brand reference: OpenAI / ChatGPT (impersonation / clone attempt)" appears to be a false positive or u
- Active social media presence on X/Twitter (@OurWorldInData), Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, and GitHub (owid); Y Combinator Winter 2019 batch participant.
- Domain registered in 2014; no negative Trustpilot/ScamAdviser findings; one low-volume Trustpilot page shows limited reviews.
- Wikipediaopen
"Our World in Data (OWID) is a scientific online publication that focuses on large global problems such as poverty, disease, hunger, war, climate change... It is a project of the Global Change Data Lab, a registered charity in England and Wa"
- Reddit (r/statistics)open
"They're based out of Oxford University and are pretty transparent about their sources for their figures. I see no reason to doubt their credibility."
- Gridinsoftopen
"We reviewed ourworldindata.org and found strong legitimacy signals. Current checks point to an established low-risk profile, with a trust score of 95/100."
- Y Combinatoropen
"Our World in Data is free, open-source and provided as a public good. It has millions of users every month, and is cited in research and media across the world."
Global Change Data Lab (owner/publisher) is a registered charity (No. 1186433, registered 19 Nov 2019, reporting up to date) and active company (No. 11725483, incorporated 13 Dec 2018). Non-profit focused on education; collaborates with University of Oxford. FYE 2024 income £4.24m, mainly donations.
Antivirus Engines
Security Scans
Checked against the major public blocklists used by browsers and security tools — no hits.
Contact Verification
We fetched the page and looked for real-world contact details. Legitimate businesses almost always publish an email on their own domain, a phone number, and a postal address. Scam shops usually don't.
- No contact email found anywhere on the page.
- No postal address visible on the page.
- Page impersonates OpenAI / ChatGPT on a non-official domain.
- Login form present on a page impersonating OpenAI / ChatGPT — credential-harvest pattern.
- Phone number listed (1186433).
- Links to 12 social profiles.
Domain & Encryption
Redirect Chain
- 1301http://ourworldindata.org/
- 2200https://ourworldindata.org/
Server Reputation
Still, stay alert
No major threat indicators — but a clean scan does not guarantee every page is safe, and phishing emails routinely spoof real domains.
- Double-check the exact URL in your address bar
Confirm you are actually on ourworldindata.org and not a lookalike like o-urworldindata.org.com or an IDN homoglyph.
- Use a password manager
Password managers only auto-fill on the exact domain they were saved for — they refuse to fill lookalike domains, which is the single best phishing defence.
- OpenDiscuss this site on the forum
If you have first-hand experience with this site — good or bad — share it with the MalwareTips community.
Reputation Sources
How this domain rates across independent threat-intelligence and blocklist providers.
Referenced Domains
Outbound domains this page links to or loads resources from. Each links to its own security scan.
Safety FAQ
Common questions about this site, answered directly from the scan data above — so the answers always reflect the latest verdict on this page.
- Our automated security review found no threat indicators on ourworldindata.org. The site appears legitimate based on the signals we checked, but always stay alert for phishing emails that spoof real domains.
- ourworldindata.org passed our automated security checks with a trust score of 84/100. No antivirus engines or major blacklists flagged the site at the time of the last scan.
- Yes. ourworldindata.org presents a valid TLSv1.3 certificate issued by Google Trust Services · WE1, expiring in 41 days. Note that SSL only encrypts the connection — it does not guarantee that the site itself is trustworthy.
- ourworldindata.org is 12.1 years old, registered on 5/23/2014 through NameCheap, Inc.. Scam domains are often freshly registered — a site under 6 months old warrants extra caution.
- No. All 92 antivirus engines in our malware network report ourworldindata.org as clean.
- No. ourworldindata.org is not currently listed on the major browser blocklist feeds that modern browsers use.
- ourworldindata.org resolves to an IP operated by Cloudflare, Inc. in US (usage type: Content Delivery Network). Hosting location alone doesn't make a site good or bad, but unusual geography for a brand's claimed country is one of many signals we weigh.
- Yes. ourworldindata.org sits in the global top-100k on Cloudflare Radar, which means it has substantial real-world traffic. That does not automatically make it safe, but established brands almost always rank here and throwaway scam domains almost never do.
User reviews & comments(0)
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