Topsites Revisited:
www--search.com, www.dirs.org, www.worldbiggest.com and My Directory LLC

(aka eTopSites.Net LLC, Topsites LLC, Media LLC, Somnath Bharti, Magden Solutions and many other aliases)

Part 1: Background
Part 2: Correspondence
Part 3: Topsites Uncovered 
Part 4: More Topsites Scams and Lies
Part 5: Topsites Revisited
Part 6: For Sale: Topsites.us / Topsites LLC

--- Updated February 10th 2005---

OK - let's assume that you are a webmaster who's been on Mars for a while and you haven't received one of these scam emails and you don't fancy reading pages of stuff.. this is the executive summary. If you receive an unsolicited email advertising one of the domains listed here, ignore it or report it as spam. You have never "subscribed" to this directory, nor will you gain any benefit from doing so.

Topsites Revisited

By now the Topsites spamming operating has been going for over two years, but for most of 2004 the Californian side of the operation has been fairly quiet, presumably trying not to fall foul of the CAN-SPAM Act.

However, the Indian Side of the operation, run by Somnath Bharti is still going strong, and has the dubious distinction of now being listed in ROKSO as one of the world's most notorious spamming outfits. Currently trading under the name "My Directory LLC"  or "eTopSites.Net LLC" or "Media LLC" (an alias for Topsites LLC) they have acquired a whole new set of domain names to add to some old ones, currently giving them:

Most of these are expired domains, presumably in an attempt to get some traffic. teens-boy.net is interesting as it had a previous life as a gay pornography site featuring "young & horny teens and twinks".

The current spam email goes along the following lines:

From: The Editor <owner-nolist-x@www--search.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2006 12:00 AM
Subject: Please update your *****.com listing in the World's Biggest directory by Friday, December 12 (Adv)

Could you please be so kind as to update your *****.com listing in the World's Biggest directory and search engine by Thursday so we can continue to list you, if you don't mind?

Updating your listing is absolutely FREE!

After updating your listing, you may also want to:

Review our translations of your website into 10 languages.

Get a free report on how popular your website is.

Unsubscribe My Directory LLC, 946A NW Circle Blvd. #248, Corvallis, OR 97330 USA

Clicking on the links allows you to "update" the listing you never subscribed to in the first place, and tries to get you to "trial" some services such as web page translation that you can get for free. In the past this has used a combination of free services from Alexa and AltaVista, and we suspect this situation is unchanged.

We'd strongly advise you to steer clear of any "trials" at all because Topsites LLC / My Directory LLC have used intimidating practices in the past to try to convince webmaster to pay up. Again, we see no reason to believe that this has changed.

Be in no doubt that you will derive no benefit from a listing in this directory, either in terms of traffic or link popularity. Indeed, a listing in the Topsites / My Directory listing may even harm your website as many search engines blacklist it.

In late December 2004, the domain worldbiggest.com came to light with a snazzy logo. But it's still the same old rubbish.

worldbiggest.com = world's biggest con?

It's an unfortunate choice for a domain name given the history here.

Who's Behind the Latest Spam?

Well, we've seen these contact details before:

Registrant:
 My Directory  LLC
 PO Box 7334 - 101591
 San Francisco, CA 94120-7334
 US
 415-462-3044 
 

Domain Name: WWW--SEARCH.COM

Administrative Contact: 
 Master, Web listings2@www--search.com
 PO Box 7334 - 101591
 San Francisco, CA 94120-7334
 US
 415-462-3044 
 

Technical Contact: 
 Master, Web listings2@www--search.com
 PO Box 7334 - 101591
 San Francisco, CA 94120-7334
 US
 415-462-3044 
 

Record last updated 11-14-2004 12:41:38 PM
Record expires on 03-23-2005
Record created on 03-23-2004

Domain servers in listed order:
	NS1.WWW--SEARCH.COM	202.14.69.2
	NS2.WWW--SEARCH.COM	202.14.69.102

The site www--search.com and the others are hosted at 202.14.69.2, which is listed to:

inetnum:      202.14.69.0 - 202.14.69.255
netname:      MADGENSITES
descr:        Madgen Solutions Pvt. Ltd. provides collocation services, shared
descr:        hosting services, private servers hosting, mailing solutions and
descr:        mailservers and is located in Malviya Nagar, New Delhi, India
country:      IN
admin-c:      HM339-AP
tech-c:       HM339-AP
remarks:      send all spam and abuse reports to abuse@madgen.com
mnt-by:       APNIC-HM
mnt-routes:   MAINT-IN-MADGEN
status:       ASSIGNED PORTABLE
remarks:      -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
remarks:      This object can only be updated by APNIC hostmasters.
remarks:      To update this object, please contact APNIC
remarks:      hostmasters and include your organisation's account
remarks:      name in the subject line.
remarks:      -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
changed:      hm-changed@apnic.net 20040817
changed:      hm-changed@apnic.net 20040929
source:       APNIC

person:       host master
nic-hdl:      HM339-AP
e-mail:       hostmaster@madgen.com
address:      C-28, Malviya Nagar, New Delhi-110017, India
phone:        +91-11-26672214
fax-no:       +91-11-26672214
country:      IN
changed:      somnath@madgen.com 20040922
mnt-by:       MAINT-IN-MADGEN
source:       APNIC

This lists Somnath Bharti's address (we can assume that he's somnath@madgen.com). Remember he, denied being connected with this outfit.

(Note - magden.com is a UK double glazing company - madgen.com is home of these spammers)

Madgen.com and Madgensolutions.com are registered to another new name:

Max Dest (domains4u@gmail.com)
42, Khirki Village
Malviya Nagar
New Delhi, New Delhi 110017
India
+91 11 30938395 

The domain dirs.org is registered to a Florida address we haven't seen before, and is hosted by spam-friendly Peer 1 in Canada.

Domain ID:D104710290-LROR
Domain Name:DIRS.ORG
Created On:01-Aug-2004 17:35:04 UTC
Last Updated On:13-Nov-2004 01:00:27 UTC
Expiration Date:01-Aug-2005 17:35:04 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Intercosmos Media Group Inc. (R48-LROR)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:ODN-638485
Registrant Name:Host Master
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street1:4440 NW 73rd Ave.
Registrant Street2:Suite NAS 485
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Miami
Registrant State/Province:FL
Registrant Postal Code:33166
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.4154623044
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:sales@dirs.org
[snip]
Name Server:NS1.MYDIR.ORG
Name Server:NS2.MYDIR.ORG

This is most likely a box number, although the contact telephone numbers are the same as for the California one. The Florida address also comes up if you actually try to register in the My Directory LLC directory:

Simply print and mail a copy of this order form with a U.S. check for three months services to:
My Directory LLC, 4440 NW 73rd Ave., Suite NAS 485, Miami, FL 33166 USA.

No doubt we'll be hearing more from this outfit soon..