The results of Ponemon Institute’s annual Most Trusted Companies for Privacy Study are out. From the press release, the top five most trusted companies were: American Express, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Hewlett Packard, and E-Bay:
The rankings were derived from responses given by 6,627 U.S. adults that included more than 38,000 individual company ratings, 229 of which were mentioned at least twenty times. Among the brands that made the top twenty were four not listed in the previous study, including Google, Weight Watchers, Walmart, and AT&T. Of the companies listed last year, Facebook, AOL, and eLoan did not make the 2010 list.
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“2009 was a tumultuous year for privacy, as illustrated by Facebook’s drop out of the top twenty in a year when they found themselves at the center of a very public debate over the evolution of their privacy policies and settings,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, Ponemon Institute. “Facebook draws a great deal of attention because they have chosen to innovate on the issue of privacy in a highly visible manner, and while they were rewarded for their efforts last year, consumers were less kind to them this year, showing just how important privacy protection is as a brand asset.”
More details on the top 20 are included in the full release on MarketWatch.