Earlier this week, Kim Dotcom expressed outrage that MegaUpload data had been abruptly wiped from 690 LeaseWeb servers containing huge amounts of data from the now defunct online storage site's European customers. LeaseWeb has responded with a statement explaining why they decided to take the action they did in deleting the MegaUpload data.
As with most things, it seems it came down to money. LeaseWeb was quick to acknowledge that they valued MegaUpload as a customer, but went on to explain that none of the servers in question were owned by Dotcom's company. Since the MegaUpload shutdown and raid over a year ago, LeaseWeb had been storing the servers without compensation.
Another of MegaUpload's hosts, Carpathia, is reportedly paying $9,000 per day out of pocket to store and maintain decommissioned MegaUpload servers. This cost may not be outrageous for a huge company like LeaseWeb, which operates 60,000 servers in total, but no doubt paying to keep these servers without compensation is a financial burden.
It's likely that when these companies like Carpathia say they are "paying" to store the servers, that it's more accurately a loss of revenue as opposed to an expenditure. But, assuming LeaseWeb was losing similar amounts of money on the MegaUpload servers laying idle, we're talking about $4.9 million dollars for the 18 months they have been offline.
According to LeaseWeb's statement, during that time they received no requests for access to the servers, or any requests to retain the data. Contrary to Kim Dotcom's tweets, LeaseWeb states that they did reach out to inform MegaUpload of the server re-provisioning, but didn't receive a response.
Either way, at this point, it's the MegaUpload customers that are the biggest losers in this move.