Mega could be blocked by Google search results for a familiar reason.
Internet privacy has been a hot issue for years now, and has even soured the opinions of many voters after President Obama was revealed to stand behind the infamous SOPA/PIPA bill in 2011. We’ve been fighting for our privacy on the internet for two years now as the US government, alongside major media companies, has been targeting piracy. SOPA/PIPA would have granted the US government the power to shut down any website they felt was a threat, including sites like Mega .
Unfortunately, they keep going after the wrong people, and Mega founder Kim Dotcom is one of the biggest targets. Google is threatening to block search results for Mega as a result of pressure from movie studios who don’t want their films being distributed on the internet without a profit.
It can be said that the film and music industry are victims of their own success, as the more popular the film or song, the more often it will be downloaded illegally. On one side of the struggle, there are the fans who just want to see if the movie or song is worth buying the album or Blu-Ray/DVD for. On the other side, media companies are losing money every time a film or song is downloaded for free.
Mega founder Kim Dotcom is literally just the middle man, a pawn in the war between piracy and privacy. Being based in New Zealand has kept him from severe legal action as users constantly use his services as a bridge for this battle.
Mega has been considered an even bigger threat than Kim Dotcom’s original site MegaUpload , even though it is the same thing, basically. It is the movie studios such as NBC Universal and Warner Bros. who want the site removed from Google’s search engine.
There are two very strong sides in this war over the balance between piracy and privacy, and there is likely no end in site.
What do you think about Mega being taken off of Google’s search engines?
