Why do I get search.com instead of "host not found"?

Solution 1:

Sounds like NXDOMAIN hijacking.

What DNS servers is your device using, and can you change them to a non-hijacking recursive lookup server?

Solution 2:

Sounds like NXDOMAIN hijacking to me as well.

Replace the name servers in your /etc/resolv.conf and use Google's instead:

8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4