Filesonic.com has bitten the dust – almost. They have turned off all file sharing capabilities. But I have noticed something: until now, it is only foreign websites that are being targeted. Meanwhile, American companies such as Mediafire.com, Box.net, and Google continue on as normal. US authorities can’t possibly deny that there is zero copyrighted material on American servers.

Could this the FATCA equivalent to the file sharing world, where the US deems that servers outside of their control are “bad”?

Here is a very good article on the overreach and consumer rights issues http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/20/business/megaupload-shutdown/index.html

Probably the most shocking to me is US handling of the issue:

He said it was inappropriate for U.S. authorities to seize the company’s servers and domain names, not to mention $50 million in assets, without a court hearing.

To me, this is just plain scary. These people have yet to be proven guilty yet their assets are confiscated!! This is something that I would expect to read out of a science fiction novel, and not in the latest headlines.

Worse off are the sites’ customers who PAID for plans and uploaded content to share with friends and family that are no longer able to do that. In the case of MegaUpload, the files are totally inaccessible. With FileSonic, the files have to be downloaded and re-uploaded to a different server. I doubt the US will even offer to reimburse people for the time lost, or costs incurred, as in the case of metered 3G plans. As ridiculous as it sounds, the safest place to host your home videos of your kids is probably on a server located in the US. Otherwise, you take the risk of losing them.

Now is the time that I would be completely overjoyed at a news announcement from the likes of the EU or a group of countries that would like to form a parallel “internet” that excludes the US. They are simply too problematic to deal with.