A website that helped users locate Apple stores with iPhones and iPads available for sale has shut down its service after being hit with a notice alleging that it violated Apple.com's terms of service.

Apple-Tracker.com and iphone-check.herokuapp.com examined publicly available inventory information from Apple.com and tried to make it easier for people to navigate. The service gained some attention, with articles in the Los Angeles Times and other news sites.

The site now shows a message from developer Mordy Tikotzky saying, "I've decided to turn off the site. I'm not doing this because I want to, but rather because I received a DMCA takedown notice from Apple. I'm not really interested in picking a fight with apple so..... I guess it time to just say good bye." On Twitter, Tikotzky wrote, "It might be legal but I don't have the resources to fight with Apple."

Tikotzky posted the text of the notice from an attorney representing Apple. "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," the notice says.

Those terms say, "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. Apple reserves the right to bar any such activity."

The notice asks the site owner to "act expeditiously to remove or otherwise disable" the Web service.

Tikotzky called the Apple letter a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice, but it actually does not mention the DMCA. On Twitter, Public Knowledge VP of Legal Affairs Sherwin Siy noted that Apple did not specify any copyright violations. "Leveraging ToS into a (c) complaint. If that becomes standard practice, you can send DMCA takedowns for anything," Siy write.

A cached version of Apple-Tracker.com notes that the website "looks up the information on Apple.com for each product and reformats it to make it easier to read."

Users can still find inventory information easily on Apple.com by selecting the product they want, clicking "Check availability," and entering their zip code:

Editor's note: This story was updated to specify that the Apple notice does not specifically mention the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.