I seem to be getting the worst news from crooked big corporate videogame companies, this time IGN sent out a letter to poor Halo3Planet.com asking the site owner to “change its site’s name” because “IGN is a bit concerned about folks being confused when they visit “Halo 3 Planet”, as they apparently run several video related websites with the word “Planet” as their slogan”

As if this wasn’t enough, one of IGN’s staff seems to have posted an explanation on Halo3planet’s blog regarding the laws underlying this request:

Michael Wilson Says:
“Education: The issue here isn’t so much the trademark confusion as it is the trademark dilution. Example: We know Microsoft has the Xbox 360, right? Well, let’s say Nintendo wants to call their next system Wii 360. No one is confused as to which making which console, right? But the fact is Microsoft was first and wants to protect the rights to the “360″ name that they put time, money, and effort to turn into an established brand. You can’t have others using a name you established otherwise it dilutes the name. You let one person do it, and everyone else is going to follow and in turn your established mark loses its value. Trademark law is different because the person who came up with the trademark has to police their mark themselves unlike other areas of law where there is an actual policing body. The letters serve the purpose of people policing their mark. I’m on this site’s side since I think that this is distinguishable enough, but it drives me nuts as to the stupid comments people make on here without being educated as to what the underlying law is for this.”

WFT IGN?

Note: I was inclined to purchase as many “planet” video game domains after learning of this abuse, but I just don’t have the time to build them.

Update: did purchase StreetFighterPlanet.com

Correction: Michael Wilson is not an IGN employee.

Halo 3 Planet Says:
“Howdy,

While I will not comment anymore about IGN’s letter to us, I would like to just point out that Michael Wilson is not a known Employee of IGN… at least I don’t believe he is.  I’ll spare you my whole opinion of all this for the time being.  I am happy to see that nearly all (if not all) of our viewers knew that we were not part of IGN’s planet network to begin with.

Best Regards,

Halo 3 Planet Admin”