Did Apple shut down the Activation Lock checker? Why?

I have an used iPhone 6s that is pin locked and I wanted to check whether it was locked to iCloud or not.

I opened icloud.com/activationlock to find out that the service is no longer available.

Is there any reason Apple decided to disable this tool? Now it will be harder to tell if an used iPhone that you want to buy is stolen.

Solution 1:

Apple has closed this tool. It is no longer available without being an employee of Apple or being a member of Apple's Authorised Service Provider Program.

As for why, Apple hasn't publicly given a reason, but I speculate that it is due to the ability to find serial numbers of devices which have not been registered with Find My iPhone.