Apple purchases iCloud.net domain forcing social network to shut up shop
Apple has muscled in on the iCloud.Net website, purchasing the domain for an undisclosed sum and leading to the closure of the independent social network which it hosted.
Apple’s move for the Asian platform came abruptly with the site informing its users that it was to ‘stop all services’ without supplying further detail. It subsequently emerged that Apple was behind a recent buyout of the domain.
It is doubtless not coincidental that iCloud so happens to be the term used by Apple to name its own cloud software services such as mail, photo library and apps, suggesting that the tech giant is keen to swoop on any associated domain to eliminate market confusion.
Apple has refused to comment on the deal, specifically whether it ordered the shutdown of the social network or if it was merely an unintended casualty of the domain purchase.
Tony Lei, owner of the now defunct iCloud social network, has said he intends to focus his energies on ‘a new site which will provide online coupon codes for, Chinese users’.
Apple's iCloud service hasn't been without its controversies having been at the heart of a celebrity hacking scandal last year in which a Pennsylvania man accessed the personal accounts of celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence.