Apple Begins Shutting Down Sites That Help People Find Apple Products

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It looks like the end of the useful iPhone and iPad availability sites we have been telling you about is just around the corner. One of the most popular tracking sites, Apple-Tracker.com has received a DMCA takedown notice.

The issue with the site was of course it pulled data from the web store in an artificial way which is a big no-no for Apple.

You can see the Fruit Company clearly states this in its Terms of Use on its website

"You may not use any “deep-link”, “page-scrape”, “robot”, “spider” or other automatic device, program, algorithm or methodology, or any similar or equivalent manual process, to access, acquire, copy or monitor any portion of the Site or any Content, or in any way reproduce or circumvent the navigational structure or presentation of the Site or any Content, to obtain or attempt to obtain any materials, documents or information through any means not purposely made available through the Site."

“It was fun while it lasted. I’m not really interested in picking a fight with apple so I guess it’s time to just say good bye.” - Mordy Tikotzky, the founder of Apple-Tracker.com

In case you weren’t familiar with the service it essentially allowed you to enter in your ZIP code and get a list of nearby Apple retailers with iPhone and iPad available estimates broke down by model, color and storage.

You can take a look at the takedown notice below:

321 11th St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Takedown Notice

Date: October 17, 2013

Dear Heroku Legal Agent:

I, the undersigned, state UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY that:

[1] I am, a person injured, or an agent authorized to act on behalf of a person injured by unlawful web content published via and at heroku.com

[2] I May Be Contacted At:

Name of Injured Party : APPLE INC.

Name and Title: RYAN BRICKER, ASSOCIATE

Company: KILPATRICK TOWNSEND AND STOCKTON LLP

Address: TWO EMBARCADERO CENTER, 8TH FLOOR

City, State, and Zip: SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 94111

Email address [email protected]

Telephone: 415-576-0200

Fax: 415-576-0300

[3] I have a good faith belief that the the website identified by URL below is unlawful because, among other things, the page scrapes and collects data from apple.com in violation of the apple.com Internet Service Terms of Use (see: http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/terms/site.html) and Heroku Acceptable Use Policy.

Heroku Acceptable Use Policy

2.2 Your use of the Heroku Services must comply with all applicable laws, regulations and ordinances, including any laws regarding the export of data or software.

[4] Reason:

Content Type / Violation: Automated scraping/copying/acquiring web app, operating in violation of the apple.com Internet Service Terms of Use

[5] Please act expeditiously to remove or otherwise disable the following website/web application:

http://iphone-check.herokuapp.com/

[6] I have a good faith belief that the removal of copyright management information from the material listed above is not authorized by law; and

[7] The information in this notice is accurate.

Thank you for your kind assistance.

Truthfully,

/Ryan Bricker/

Original Article