Twitter suspends UberTwitter and twidroyd

Twitter has cut-off popular third-party portals UberTwitter and twidroyd, citing a host of policy violations and trademark infringements.

The apps in question are, according to a statement on Friday, guilty of changing users tweets in order to make money and allowing direct messages of over 140 characters..

Twitter decided to get public with the suspension after many users complained about being unable to log-in to their favourite clients.

The statement reads: "Today we suspended several applications, including UberTwitter, twidroyd and UberCurrent, which have violated Twitter policies and trademarks in a variety of ways.

"These violations include, but aren't limited to, a privacy issue with private Direct Messages longer than 140 characters, trademark infringement, and changing the content of users' Tweets in order to make money."

Shape up or ship out

Twitter says developer UberMedia has been treading on thin ice for almost a year, but will be welcomed back into the fold if it falls back into line with the social networking site's rules.

"We've had conversations with UberMedia, the developer of these applications, about policy violations since April 2010, when they first launched under the name TweetUp – a term commonly used by Twitter users and a trademark violation.

"We continue to be in contact with UberMedia and hope that they will bring the suspended applications into compliance with our policies soon."

With Twitter playing hardball, it might be an idea to rely on the official clients for the time being. The new Android Twitter app is actually pretty good.

Update: The policy violations have now been ironed out and the apps should be live again soon.