Users who have stored their data with Megaupload appeared to have gained a couple of weeks' reprieve. The latest twist comes in the wake of our report last week on how users of Megaupload were debating suing the U.S. government for their lost data. This was followed by Associated Press reports over the weekend that companies hired to store data for the cyberlocker service may begin deleting that data as early as this week.

This is due to Megaupload's inability to pay its vendors, like Cogent Communications and Carpathia Hosting, what with the its bank account being frozenm, not to mention many of its top managers in jail or out on bail. A new report on CNET News quoted Megaupload's attorney, Ira Rothken, who is in negotiations with the government to resolve the user data dilemma.

"The hosting companies have been gracious enough to provide additional time so we can work out some kind of arrangement with the government," says Rothken.

For now, the U.S. Attorney's office has given the green light to delete the files, saying that it has copied sufficient data for its prosecution. It was reported on TechNewsWorld that U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride, in a letter addressed to attorneys representing Megaupload and other defendants, suggested that Megaupload's legal team deal directly with Cogent and Carpathia to recover the data of legitimate users.

However, Carpathia has since replied that it "does not have, and has never had, access to the content on MegaUpload servers and has no mechanism for returning any content residing on such servers to MegaUpload's customers." While this comes as no surprise given Carpathia's role as an infrastructure provider, it also makes clear the extremely tenuous position of hapless users caught in the crossfire.

Regardless of how this pans out, I think businesses would do well to reexamine at their cloud storage strategies. After all, who is to say that a completely straight-laced cloud vendor could not be taken down due to one customer being accused of rampant piracy?

For more:
- check out this article at CNET News
- check out this article at CNET News
- check out this article at TechNewsWorld

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