There has been a lot of controversy recently revolving around a devious, creepy app called 'Girls Around Me,' after Cult of Mac's John Brownlee discovered the stalkerish iPhone app and pointed out serious privacy concerns.

Girls Around Me combined available Foursquare and Facebook data to automatically pinpoint the location of women nearby. Upon a search, the app provided a map with women, pictured as stripper-like icons, along with their Facebook profile data. The women's location was layered over Google maps, with real-time GPS location data.

Following the firestorm of criticism and controversy over privacy concerns, Foursquare blocked the app's access to its API, rendering it useless. "This is a violation of our API policy, so we've reached out to the developer and shut off their API access," said Foursquare spokesperson Laura Covington, in a statement to The New York Times.

Girls Around Me App Developer Fights Back

On Saturday, March 31, Russian developer iFree Innovations, the creator of the Girls Around Me app, defended its intentions and insisted that the app used publicly available information, providing the same functionality as many other apps.

In response to Foursquare's move to block API access, a move that rendered the app useless, the Russian developer fired back with a lengthy statement sent to The Wall Street Journal, claiming it is unethical to pick a scapegoat to talk about privacy concerns. "We see this wave of negative as a serious misunderstanding of the app's goals, purpose, abilities and restrictions," the developer said.

Pulled from iTunes App Store

According to the developer, the app was designed to simply help people find public venues nearby. Instead, the app has drawn severe criticism and was seen as a perfect tool for stalkers and rapists. The app's promos showing women in provocative poses, along with the fact that targeted women had no idea their data was poured into some dude's phone, makes it easy to see the app as more than just an innocent tool for discovering public venues.

Since the app is now useless without Foursquare's data, iFree said it has pulled Girls Around Me from Apple's iTunes store, but it will continue development and "limit it to showing only public places and venues."

(reported by Alexandra Burlacu, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)