If you don’t want IGE collecting data about your gameplay (and who knows what else), read this.
1. IGE Owns the OGaming Network.
Let’s take a look at the Whois data for Ogaming.com
Source: http://www.betterwhois.com/bwhois.cgi?domain=ogaming.com&x=0&y=0
Registrant:
OGAMING NETWORK
152 W. 57th Street
Carnegie Hall Tower, 25th Fl
New York, New York 10019
United States
NS1.OGAMING.COM
NS8.ENTHROPIA.COM
If this address doesn’t look familiar, let me refresh your memory.
Source: http://www.cannotlinkto/corporate.aspx?id=offices&lang=en
(insert "i g e . c o m" where it says "BANNED")
New York
IGE
Carnegie Hall Tower
25th Floor
152 W. 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
IGE’s New York business address matches the registrant’s address for Ogaming.com
2. The OGaming Network claims to own Thottbott.
Source: http://www.ogaming.com/data/2235~Advertise.php
”Our properties include OGaming.com, L2Orphus.com, Thottbot.com, Guild-Hall.net, Warcraftcentral.com, more than 30 targeted community sites as well as a vast array of online forums.”
3. Lets see – if you go to WoW OGaming and hover over World of Warcraft in their menu bar, it links to Thottbot
4. If we head over to Thottbot, and we check the links page (http://www.thottbot.com/?l=news) look who is the first link: WoW OGaming
5. Let’s look a bit further. What about the Whois data for Thottbot?
Source: http://www.betterwhois.com/bwhois.cgi?domain=thottbot.com&x=0&y=0
Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
15111 N Hayden Rd., Suite 160
PMB353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
NS1.THOTTBOT.NET
NS2.THOTTBOT.NET
Looks like someone wants to hide their identity.
6. Let’s take a deeper look at the OGaming Network. If we look at the page source of http://wow.ogaming.com we see what looks like the OGaming Network’s ad server: http://ads.ogamingmedia.com
Let’s see what Whois has to say about OGamingMedia.com.
Source: http://www.betterwhois.com/bwhois.cgi?domain=ogamingmedia.com&x=0&y=0
Registrant:
OGAMING NETWORK
152 W. 57th Street
Carnegie Hall Tower, 25th Fl
New York, New York 10019
United States
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.THOTTBOT.NET
NS2.THOTTBOT.NET
Whoa! It’s pretty clear from the domain registration info that IGE owns the OGaming Network. The OGaming Network admittedly owns Thottbot.com. Now we have a direct connection between IGE and Thottbot.com.
7. Thoughts.
I don’t know about you but I won’t be using the Thottbot Plugin for Cosmos anymore. It’s one thing to share my gameplay information with the gaming community but something completely different to be sharing it with a company involved in a business that is prohibited by Blizzard Entertainment. Who knows what other personal information they may be collecting with Thottbot that we don’t know about. Who knows if IGE is manipulating/withholding Thottbot data for business purposes to better control the market. I don’t think it be the first time IGE tried to manipulate a virtual world’s market?
AT
Edited, Wed Feb 9 01:56:12 2005 by AbyssalThroat