Kim Dotcom sees his Me.ga plan dissolving.
Kim Dotcom, the illustrious mega-pirate free on bail while pending extradition from New Zealand to the US, announced his plans to relaunch the Megaupload empire using the domain hack Me.ga, and apparently thought he had a concrete plan.
The .GA ccTLD of the African country of Gabon offered Kim Dotcom the opportunity to use a short, memorable domain for his resurrected venture of delivering mostly pirated content globally.
By using a proxy buyer located in France, Kim Dotcom acquired Me.ga and set a launch date of January 19, 2013.
Now, the domain Me.ga has been reclaimed by the government of Gabon, and it points to a rare, single letter Twitter account (omega).
Gabonese Communication Minister, Blaise Louembe, ordered the immediate suspension of the Me.ga web site, stating that he wanted to “protect intellectual property rights” and “fight cyber crime effectively”.
He added:
“Gabon cannot serve as a platform or screen for committing acts aimed at violating copyrights, nor be used by unscrupulous people,” according to AFP.
Which is exactly why one should never launch a business or a service based on national ccTLDs – without first checking on the legality of the service in relation to the local laws. For example, The Pirate Bay operates without any major problems from ThePirateBay.se based in Sweden.
