A court in New Zealand decided not to accept a bail appeal by the founder of online file-sharing site Megaupload. com. The court agreed with the prosecutors that he might try to flee before an extradition hearing. Kim Dotcom, who founded the popular site offering direct downloads, is reportedly also known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor.

He was sent back to custody until February 22 before a hearing on an extradition application by the United States. The High Court in Auckland upheld the lower court's observation that there is a risk of Kim Dotcom's trying to flee before the hearing on extradition to the US.

Justice Raynor Asher said that, "There was nothing to tie Dotcom to New Zealand except his motivation to fight the charges and get his funds." Prosecutor Anne Toohey said that the judge of the lower correctly held that there is a risk of his escaping the country and the risk cannot be addressed by measures such as imposition of conditions, including electronic monitoring.

FBI has launched a crackdown of Megaupload for copyright infringement. The move had sparked concerns across the world about reliability of similar cloud computing services.