The developer of an iPhone app, which was being used to stalk women present in the local area, has removed the app from the iTunes app store following criticism from various sections.

The "Girls Around Me" app uses location-based social networking service Foursquare to give out locations of female users, who publicly `checked in' nearby. Foursquare r3ecently halted access by the app to its data following concerns that the app is being used to stalk women by some users. Following the halting of the access, the developer removes the app from the store.

Laura Covington, a Foursquare spokeswoman said, "This is a violation of our API [application programming interface] policy, so we've reached out to the developer and shut off their API access."

Besides showing women, who have checked-in to locations nearby using Foursquare, the app also allows users to view Facebook information of those ladies who have linked that user accounts their Foursquare account if their accounts settings allowed.

US technology blog Gizmodo said that the Girls Around Me app is the world's creepiest app available. On the girlsaround. me promotional website used for marketing the app, it states that the service "helps you see where nearby girls are checking in, and shows you what they look like and how to get in touch".