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Is google really behind the search.app domain? (self.privacy)

submitted 4 months ago by MoondropLight to c/[email protected]

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Recently links shared to me from IOS users using the google app have been obfuscated with search.app/SOMEUNIQUECODE where the app redirects to the originally intended website, but, of course, the person clicking the link is revealed to the owners of search.app.

Does anyone have IOS + google and can confirm this behavior? search.app has no home page and no documentation or reporting about it that I could find (other than that it's a firebase app). The domain was registered to MarkMonitor Inc. in September of last year. But It's not clear to me what MarkMonitor's business actually is–it seems like they could just have registered it on behalf of someone.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

Yes, it's Google:

Registrant Organization: Google LLC

You can get more details if you run whois on your machine (this is about half of the output):

refer:        whois.nic.google

domain:       APP

organisation: Charleston Road Registry Inc.
address:      1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
address:      Mountain View CA 94043
address:      United States of America (the)

contact:      administrative
name:         TLD Admin
organisation: Google Inc.
address:      111 8th Avenue
address:      New York NY 10011
address:      United States of America (the)
phone:        +1 404 978 8419
fax-no:       +1 650 492 5631
e-mail:       [email protected]

contact:      technical
name:         TLD Engineering
organisation: Google Inc
address:      76 Ninth Avenue, 4th Floor
address:      New York NY 10011
address:      United States of America (the)
phone:        +1 404 978 8419
fax-no:       +1 650 492 5631
e-mail:       [email protected]

nserver:      NS-TLD1.CHARLESTONROADREGISTRY.COM 2001:4860:4802:32:0:0:0:69 216.239.32.105
nserver:      NS-TLD2.CHARLESTONROADREGISTRY.COM 2001:4860:4802:34:0:0:0:69 216.239.34.105
nserver:      NS-TLD3.CHARLESTONROADREGISTRY.COM 2001:4860:4802:36:0:0:0:69 216.239.36.105
nserver:      NS-TLD4.CHARLESTONROADREGISTRY.COM 2001:4860:4802:38:0:0:0:69 216.239.38.105
nserver:      NS-TLD5.CHARLESTONROADREGISTRY.COM 2001:4860:4805:0:0:0:0:69 216.239.60.105
ds-rdata:     23684 8 2 3a5cc8a31e02c94aba6461912fabb7e9f5e34957bb6114a55a864d96aec31836

whois:        whois.nic.google

status:       ACTIVE
remarks:      Registration information: https://www.registry.google

created:      2015-06-25
changed:      2020-04-20
source:       IANA