Apple announced on July 7 that it had banned Thuat Nguyen, a Vietnamese developer, who was found guilty of fraudulently manipulating its online App Store.

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This developer and his applications have been withdrawn from the App Store for breach of contract, reported an Apple spokesperson, Trudy Muller, who noted in particular in her statement Nguyen’s “false information on statistics purchase”.

Several specialized sites were reported during a weekend of anomalies in the functioning of the online App Store: Nguyen’s applications hogged 50 positions in rankings of “most popular applications, valuable tools that allows Internet select the games and features they want to install on their iPhones, their iPod or their iPad tablet.”

The site AppleInsider stated that fraud was based on piracy of personal accounts, with many Apple customers seeing their accounts debited without their knowledge to buy Nguyen’s applications, essentially “manga” of poor quality, to appear among the bestsellers.

“An unknown number of Apple identities have apparently been hacked this weekend, used to purchase several hundred dollars worth of applications on the online App Store,” reported Mashable.com.

The spokesperson did not say whether Apple users had their accounts hacked and cut. Developers do not have access to confidential client data when an application is downloaded. Instead the account is used merely to ensure payment.

Muller stressed that Apple customers should be vigilant, pointing out that if their account number and password were stolen, they need to cancel credit cards linked to their account and change their password.

Technology blogs including Engadget.com reported that Thuat Nguyen controlled 42 of the top 50 titles in the online App Store’s book category. Some users reported having hundreds of dollars charged to their accounts.

“Someone has downloaded 8 apps and two songs totalling £61.70. The most expensive being an app called All Match by Charismaist for £54.99! The other apps seem to be based on photographer like Camera One, Night Shot, Camera Flash Ultra. Surely Apple won’t pay out to these developers,” wrote a reader on Techinfo Spotlight.

“My iTunes account was also hacked in the last week or so and I was billed £140. iTunes customer support was less than supportive and it took my bank getting involved, my card being cancelled and reissued, plus 2 changes of passwords to get is sorted. The apps that Jamie Vickery mentioned were bought using my account too,” another client wrote.

Apple has 150 million registered users for its iTunes, iBook and online App Store for purchasing music, e-books, movies and television shows. More than 225,000 applications are in the App store, with more than 5 billion downloaded, according

to Apple.

PV