With multiple legal cases underway in several jurisdictions, Kim Dotcom is undoubtedly a man with things on his mind.
In New Zealand, he’s fighting extradition to the United States. And in the United States he’s fighting a government that wants to bring him to justice on charges of copyright infringement, conspiracy, money laundering and racketeering.
After dramatically launching and then leaving his Mega file-hosting site following what appears to have been an acrimonious split, many believed that Dotcom had left the file-sharing space for good. But after a period of quiet, it now transpires that the lure of storing data has proven too much of a temptation for the businessman.
In a follow-up to previous criticism of his former company, earlier today Dotcom took another shot at Mega. That was quickly followed by a somewhat surprising announcement.
“A new site is in the making. 100gb free cloud storage,” Dotcom said.
Intrigued, TorrentFreak spoke with Dotcom to find out more. Was he really planning to launch another file-sharing platform?
“I can say that this year I have set things in motion and a new cloud storage site is currently under development,” Dotcom confirmed.
“I’m excited about the new innovations the site will contain.”
When pressed on specific features for the new platform, Dotcom said it was too early to go into details. However, we do know that the site will enable users to sync all of their devices and there will be no data transfer limits.
For the privacy-conscious, Dotcom also threw out another small bone, noting that the site will also feature on-the-fly encryption. Given the German’s attention to security in recent years, it wouldn’t be a surprise if additional features are added before launch.
“Eight years of knowledge and a long planning period went into this. It will be my best creation yet,” Dotcom told TF.
A potential launch date for the site hasn’t been confirmed but the Megaupload and Mega founder is currently teasing the hashtag #5thRaidAnniversary, suggesting that his new project will launch in January 2017, five years after the Megaupload raids.
Of course, we also asked Dotcom if he’d decided on a name for his new cloud-storage site. Typically he’s playing his cards close to his chest and leaving us to fill in the blanks, but he hinted that an old name with a big reputation might be making a comeback.
“The name of the new site will make people happy,” he told us.
TF will be getting a sneak peek at the site when it’s ready for launch but in the meantime, readers might be wondering what has happened to Dotcom’s censorship-resistant MegaNet project.
“Mobile networks and devices still have to catch up with my vision for MegaNet and it will probably not be before 2018 until a beta goes live,” Dotcom concludes.