The Pirate Bay was already the subject of multiple raids and pressures from law enforcement officials to shut down; now, with The Pirate Bay out of the way (although recently The Pirate Bay has sprung back to life), KickassTorrents is the latest torrenting site with a massive target on its back. Kickass Torrents is the most-viewed torrent site on the Internet- which makes it a prime target for officials trying to stop illegal downloads.
Recently, Kickass Torrents' original domain name, Kickass.so, is now longer in use. Apparently, the domain (which is based out of Somalia) has been officially banned by the Somali servers (which means that no one- neither the Kickass Torrents founders or consumers trying to use the site- can access it). Now, those behind Kickass Torrents have to find a new domain to set up shop.
But it seems they already have. Kickass Torrents has reverted back to an old domain name they used to use- Kickass Torrents.to. This domain name is Tongan, and according to Kickass Torrents it's totally risk-free. They've apparently used this particular domain multiple times and never had an issue like the one from the Somali domain.
That's not the only way that organizations are trying to cripple illegal sites like Kickass Torrents. Meantime, Valve has officially banned any mention of Kickass Torrents in Steam's chat service are now permanently prohibited. Apparently, mentioning the site or pasting in the URL will cause that message to be instantly deleted. Makes sense- as a game seller, Steam is one of the biggest services being hit by torrent sites. If they can fight back, it'd be in their best interest to fight as hard as possible.
For now, it seems like Kickass Torrents might be in the clear, but government agencies can attack torrent sites with pretty significant force. Just think about what happened to The Pirate Bay- even if they are finally back. It kinda seems like Kickass Torrents may not be long for this world at all.
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