Offender Locator, a controversial, high-profile application that allowed users to find registered sex offenders, was removed from the App Store this week.

The software from ThinAir Wireless was priced at $0.99, and had resided among the top 10 selling applications in Apple’s App Store for weeks. But according to CNet, the application was banished from the App Store for legal reasons.

While those reasons have not yet been made clear, some have speculated that it may be illegal in the state of California for anyone to profit from the

sale of publicly-available criminal information. But according to a ThinAir Wireless employee, Sex Offenders Search, a competing application for $1.99, remained on sale even after Offender Locator had been pulled from the App Store.

The software allowed users to see nearby registered offenders based on the phone’s current location or by manually entering an address. The program then pulled up a map with pinpoints for each nearby offender. The locations were each selectable, giving users access to the person’s picture, a physical description, and information on what crime they were convicted of.

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