Iconic Megaupload.com Domain Has a New Owner

As section of its felony circumstance towards Megaupload, the US Authorities seized numerous domain names belonging to Kim Dotcom's defunct file-web hosting support. Even though the feds have held onto the iconic Megaupload.com area for yrs, it was not long ago taken above by RegistrarAds, a organization with a record of controversial area conditions.

Subsequent the 2012 raid on Megaupload and Kim Dotcom, U.S. and New Zealand authorities seized hundreds of thousands of pounds in money and other house, positioned close to the earth.

Proclaiming the property were acquired via copyright and revenue laundering crimes, the U.S. govt introduced separate civil conditions in which it requested the court docket to forfeit a extensive range of seized possessions of the Megaupload defendants.

1 of these circumstances was shed immediately after the U.S. branded Dotcom and his colleagues as “fugitives”.The protection workforce appealed the ruling, but misplaced yet again, and a subsequent petition at the Supreme Court was denied.

As a end result, Dotcom had to leave behind several lender accounts and servers, as perfectly as all hope of acquiring some of his dearly treasured domain names back. This features the most worthwhile area of all, Megaupload.com.

The forfeiture was manufactured final earlier this yr but considering that then minimal was recognised about the fate of the domain names. This week, nonetheless, it turned clear that the US Authorities did not strategy to keep on to it, as Megaupload.com now has a new operator.

In accordance to the newest Whois information, which was updated late final 7 days, RegistrarAds Inc is now the official Megaupload.com operator. This previously was Megaupload Limited, underneath FBI regulate.

New owner

RegistrarAds is a business dependent in Vancouver, Washington, which specializes in getting area names. Although we could not discover a company internet site, the internet is littered with area disputes and other references to area name challenges.

Michelin North The united states, for example, filed a complaint versus RegistrarAds because it registered the michelin-team.com domain, witch success. In the same way, the California Milk Processor Board, most famed for its Got Milk? adverts, won a WIPO domain dispute more than gotpuremilk.com.

How RegistrarAds attained the Megaupload domain title is not fully distinct. It was not dropped by the registry, but it might be probable that it was scooped up in an auction. Theoretically, the US Federal government could have offered it much too, but we see no evidence for that.

It is also not known what the company’s options are for Megaupload.com. Even so, given the company’s keep track of file it’s unlikely that it will do everything file-sharing associated. The domain hasn’t up to date its nameservers nonetheless and stays unreachable at the time of crafting.

TorrentFreak attained out to RegistrarAds, hoping to discover out much more, but we have nonetheless to listen to back.

Megaupload.com is not the only domain that adjusted owners lately. The exact same occurred to Megaclick.com, which is now registered to Buydomains.com. Several of the other seized Megaupload area names keep on being in possession of US authorities, for now.