One week after Kim Dotcom unveiled "Me.ga," the domain for his new file sharing service to replace Megaupload, the government of Gabon in Africa announced that it would suspend the site immediately. At the same time, a group called Omega that opposes Dotcom has seemingly taken over the domain and has it redirecting to its Twitter feed.
The nation of Gabon in Central Africa controls the .ga Internet domains, and doesn't want Dotcom using one of them as a "platform or screen for committing acts aimed at violating copyrights."
"I have instructed my departments... to immediately suspend the site www.me.ga," said Communication Minister Blaise Louembe, according to the AFP French news agency.
Dotcom was reportedly hosting the Me.ga domain with Gabon Telecom, a subsidiary of the Vivendi entertainment company. On Twitter, Dotcom blamed the Me.ga shutdown on "the reach of the US & Vivendi." He's not giving up plans to launch his new Mega service, though. Dotcom also tweeted that "We have an alternative domain. This just demonstrates the bad faith witch hunt the US government is on." Me.ga had been set up to redirect traffic to a site in France that would provide access to Dotcom's new file-sharing service, which is expected to launch in January.
For now, Me.ga is redirecting to the Twitter feed of a group called Omega. Omega is being described as "hackers" in some accounts, although it may have taken over the domain by legitimate means after it was pulled from Dotcom's control. The Twitter feed popped up overnight, with statements like "Say goodbye to me.ga and hello to o.me.ga," and "Of course we will entertain offers from @KimDotcom's enemies in the millions of dollars (or bitcoins) for the me.ga domain." Omega also claimed that "@KimDotcom offered us 1% of Megabox in exchange" for the domain.
Omega's website contains nothing but an image of the Greek letter for which it is named. The group is apparently not a fan of Dotcom's attitude toward copyright laws, saying in another tweet "Ome.ga is the future of music, 100% of the earnings will go to artists." Music labels are not wont to give 100 percent of earnings to artists, either, but Omega said it would like to sell its newly acquired domain to Universal Music Group and donate 10 percent of the proceeds to a youth charity in Gabon.
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