Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom launches new site

Exactly one year after his home and offices were raided and his operation shut down, internet mogul Kim Dotcom has launched a new file-sharing website that could potentially dwarf the likes of Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

Dotcom’s last venture, Megaupload, was shut down last January and he was arrested for accusations of profiting from online piracy. The German-born net whizz has created this new site, which apparently is in-keeping with all of his bail conditions, and works in a way that uses legal loopholes so that it can continue to operate freely. He spoke with multimedia news company Reuters, and said: “This is not some kind of finger to the US government or to Hollywood.

“Legally, there’s just nothing there that could be used to shut us down. This site is just as legitimate and has the right to exist as Dropbox, Boxnet and other competitors.”

The site uses Cloud technology to make all of the files and information stored easier to access for users and it is encrypted so that only those who upload data can have proper access to all of its usage. Registered users are given 50GB of free storage space which is vastly more than competing websites.

The new site, Mega, was launched this morning at dawn and reached a huge 100,000 users in only an hour; within a few hours there were 250,000 users, meaning that this could potentially go on to become the biggest online start-up in history.

Alistair Kirkby