Mega fast switcheroo —

Kim Dotcom has new “Mega” domain, says this one won’t be shut down

Dotcom turns to New Zealand to host his new website.

After the government of Gabon shut down his Me.ga domain, Kim Dotcom needed a new country to let him host the domain that will be home to the successor of file-sharing site Megaupload. That country will be New Zealand, as Dotcom is now the owner of Mega.co.nz. The exact same site that was originally hosted at Me.ga can now be found at the New Zealand domain.

On Twitter, Dotcom announced, “New Zealand will be the home of our new website: http://Mega.co.nz - Powered by legality and protected by the law.” When Gabon shut down Me.ga, Dotcom blamed “the reach of the US and Vivendi,” as the Me.ga domain was provided by Gabon Telecom, a subsidiary of the Vivendi entertainment company. Although New Zealand police raided Dotcom’s house 10 months ago because of criminal copyright charges filed against him in the US, he seems confident that New Zealand won’t shut down the domain itself.

Ultimately, getting a domain will probably be among the least challenging aspects of running Mega, which is expected to launch in January. But Dotcom has a plan for that, too. To avoid copyright charges, Dotcom promises that Mega “encrypts and decrypts your data transparently in your browser, on the fly,” and that the encryption keys are only controlled by the user, not Mega. To avoid the reach of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Dotcom plans to run his servers with hosting services outside the US.

Channel Ars Technica