The SEO consultancy world is abuzz with the news that the long arm of the American legal system has reached out and grabbed the founders and team behind the very successful site Megaupload.
The US reckon the Megaupload is making too much money from allegedly providing access to copyright material and depriving them of some $500 million in lost revenues.
Behind the website is the delightfully named Kim Dotcom – aka Kim Schmitz – a German national who is in the New Zealand dock after the FBI accused him, and three colleagues, of internet piracy and money laundering.
The New Zealanders have just denied Dotcom bail, as they agree with the Americans that he is a flight risk and would flee rather than face pending extradition proceedings for a visit to the states.
Dotcom and his team deny the charges and say that they are an online storage company and do not peddle in piracy, or money laundering.
Now, call me a cynic, but funny how the FBI took the decision to get the New Zealanders to act at about the same time as Wikipedia and the other anti Sopa and Pipa campaigners took their protects live across the internet.
As the internet guardians made sure that the US legislators knew their feelings about the new bills which they reckon will stifle web freedom and file sharing, the FBI showed how they can flex their muscles across thousands of miles of ocean.
And demonstrated, ironically, just why everyone is so nervous about the proposed US bills. It’s not the fact that Dotcom and his crew are guilty, or not guilty, but the fact that the US see themselves as the global internet police and when the FBI say jump, certain Governments ask how far!