Kim Dotcoms
The people have spoken: in its first 14 hours after going live, a little over half a million people signed up for the file sharing and cloud hosting site Mega. It is clear that users have no hesitations with the hosting site — whose predecessor, Megaupload, was shut down by US officials in January 2012.
Who is behind Mega? Why, none other than Kim Dotcom, creator of Megaupload. Despite charges against him related to Megaupload of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement; conspiracy to commit money laundering; conspiracy to commit racketeering; and two counts of criminal copyright infringement; people are surprisingly eager to hop aboard the newly launched storage site.
Kim Dotcoms: What Makes Mega Different From Megaupload?
The main difference lies in the security. Rather than file sharing with all users, files are encrypted through the browser and only the user who owns that file owns the associated unique key that decrypts it. Not only does this prevent other users from accessing the file, governments and storage providers are also blocked from viewing the data contained in the file. This data is then stored on two sets of redundant servers in two completely different countries. This means if one server is shut down, the other is up and running. Clever!
Kim Dotcoms: Why Is Everyone Scrambling to Sign Up?
One would think that users would be hesitant to sign up for a service created by a man who is accused of breaking so many laws. Numerous web hosting companies lost big after their involvement with Megaupload. Companies such as Carpathia. They were forced to pay $9,000 each day following Megaupload's shutdown just to host the data that had previously been stored on Megaupload.
It's fair to say US web hosting companies are wary of the service, but Mega assures clients that the site's lawyers are hard at work to keep things completely legal.
European web hosting providers such as Hosting.co.uk, DigiWeb, Instra, and EuroDNS have partnered with Mega too. Some as investors and others strictly as resellers. Mega's reseller package has not been launched as of yet, so these companies have “pre-launch agreements” with Mega. This gives customers of these companies a chance to be among the very first to purchase vouchers for the service.
Kim Dotcoms: How Do The Vouchers Work?
Once the customer selects a Mega reseller package on the website, a credit card payment is made. The customer is then emailed a code, sort of like a e-gift card, that works just like money on the Mega website. Currently, Mega is not accepting payments on their own site.
Seems simple, right? Not for long. Dennis Kittrell, VP of business development at Instra, one of Mega's business partners, indicated the mega reseller peckage will be changing prior to launch. First and foremost, there will be an approval process in place for resellers. Once they are approved, there will be commitments to agree to, as well as up front deposits required.
Kim Dotcoms: What Are They Looking For?
Kittrell says they have two basic needs: payment integrators and hosting integrators.
“Mega is looking to spread out across many different payment points all over the world because payment processing is a critical piece of the puzzle and redundancy is what this is all about,” said Kittrell. “Having multiple payment points is a way to ensure the sustainability of the business and ensure the sustainability of the cash flow.”
The hosting integrators are simply those who have servers they want to allow Mega access to.
As of right now, Mega is only accepting payment integrators from the US, and not hosting integrators, likely due to the legal problems Kim Dotcoms faces.
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