Kim Dotcom and Mega trade barbs over service’s future

Kim Dotcom, the endlessly legally embattled founder of the MegaUpload and Mega file lockers, has recently changed his tune on the latter's viability as a service, calling on users to back up files and warning that it's no longer a safe place to store data. Riled up by his negative comments, Mega has now released several statements of its own, lambasting the founder for his own failures.

Mega was founded in Janaury 2013, a year after Kim Dotcom's arrest, as a way to correct the mistakes of MegaUpload and provide better protection for its users. It was part of a wave of encrypted services which have come about in recent years, as the breadth and depth of government spying has become apparent.

Mega had to survive without a credit card payment processor for almost 2 years now. The air is getting thin. Backup your Mega files asap.

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) April 21, 2016

Over the years since though, Dotcom rescinded ownership and moved away from many of his founded services, so that his criminal proceedings wouldn't impact them, but that has led to what he described as a hostile takeover of Mega, with a Chinese businessman now said to be in charge. Indeed Bill Liu, who Dotcom claims is secretly head of the operation, is one of China's “top five most wanted criminals.”

Last week Dotcom urged users to back up their files if they stored them on Mega, claiming that years without credit card payments meant it was losing a million dollars a month and may not be able to survive much longer.

Mega has denied all of these claims however, stating that Liu is not involved in any capacity more than an investor and that Mega has “plenty of funds.”

“This year, MEGA has already committed 24 PB additional storage capacity to service our 40 million registered users, and we will continue that expansion,” the company said on its official blog.

Dotcom however came back again and stated that Mega's post is entirely false and that in meetings of his own with the current CEO, the company head admitted there were real problems.

Statements released by Mega CEO are simply false. I have him on the record admitting what I have warned Mega users about. #BackupYourFiles

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) April 23, 2016

But Mega then came back again, lampooning Dotcom for previously promising services like his encrypted “MegaNet,” would arrive in 2014, then 2016 and we still have yet to see it (thanks TorrentFreak).

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KitGuru Says: This is a big case of he-said-she-said, which you would perhaps think would be beyond a company that was financially stable. If it was doing well, would Dotcom's public statements really matter? His sway isn't quite what it once was. Especially with his potential extradition looming.

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