Apple bars developer from App Store

NEW YORK: Apple said on Tuesday it has barred a Vietnamese programme developer from its application store on iTunes for fraudulent activity.

"Developer Thuat Nguyen and his apps were removed from the App Store for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns," Apple said in a statement.

Apple did not provide any further details about the incident involving the App Store, which offers free and paid applications for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

But the California company's statement followed reports on various technology blogs that iTunes was hit by a scam over the weekend.

According to Engadget.com, programs developed by the unknown Nguyen grabbed 42 of the top 50 sales positions in the App Store's book category at one point.

Engadget said it had received reports from a number of people that hundreds of dollars had been spent from their iTunes accounts to buy books from Nguyen's company.

In its brief statement, Apple sought to calm potential fears among iTunes customers, stressing that "developers do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data when an app is downloaded."

Apple did not confirm iTunes accounts had been compromised but advised users whose "credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes" to contact their financial institution and change their iTunes password.