I don’t know the intimates of the patch as this is a thing I don’t really care about however I do know there was an entire patch dedicated to this issue and while not a perfect fix it managed to appease a lot of people. While I’ve got the coffee going I’ll see if I can find the link for that patch post.
What they have changed is you can now form a guild (as a group or an individual) and align your beacon(s) to the guild. If you get absorbed then your aligned guild beacons still keep their name and if they are large enough still show on the planet settlement board. However, you are still part of the larger settlement and your prestige still contributes to the prestige of the larger settlement. There is still no mechanism to prevent a merge. The protection zones that were mentioned by the developers have yet to be part of a release. So while you keep your settlement name, you still cannot prevent other players from absorbing your settlement and/or building immediately adjacent to your plots.
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I will certainly buy/rent one to show my support when the time comes. 
Though I don’t see it being more than a side thing for me - I want to focus on growth of my main settlement - and I can’t see myself using a whole one, so I’m thinking maybe I’ll sponsor one for someone, with the understanding I keep a little bit for myself.
The other thing I had in mind was trying to create a planet that would be accessible to those who might not be able to play now for various reasons, especially kids with special needs. But I’d need a really strong level of control over various permissions and abilities. The specific case I have in mind is the son of some good friends of mine, Devs - I can elaborate more in PM if you’re ever interested - but I’m just imagining building a private world tweaked for someone like him to play in, that would be really cool.
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Thanks Kal-El. I appreciate your clear reply. It’s a shame this hasn’t been implemented yet. I hope it is in the future.