Bad actors are constantly looking for new ways to redirect Internet users to their crap. I don't know if it's popular or a new trend, but I received a SMS Text which had an app.link URL. It redirected to the bad actor's website. VirusTotal didn't have any warning about the app.link URL, but did for the website it redirects to.
Going to app.link directly doesn't offer a way to send them an abuse report (like ISP do). They just say:
That link could not be found!
Looks like it's made specifically for bad actors to get away with it in its current website interface. Further searches show us that the owner is Branch. They also do not provide an easy to find Abuse Report process at this time.
So, I just opened a support ticket here:
https://help.branch.io/using-branch/page/submit-a-ticket
My opinion, feel free to report them app.link abuses this way. I'll update this post if I find a better way to report app.link abuses.
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