A study released yesterday from the Ponemon Institute, a research center that tracks privacy, data protection and information security policy issues, ranked the ten most trusted companies on the Web, according to more than 6000 respondents. Let's take a look at the companies on the list:
According to Cnet, the criteria used to measure trustworthiness in this study included "whether a company: has a clear, readability and easy to find privacy statement; provides adequate access to account information; uses cookies and discloses that to users; shares data with other companies and affiliates; has a data retention policy; has a chief privacy officer; whether they disclose a user's e-mail during password reset; and whether they use Web beacons." These are definitely good guideposts for determining whether or not a site is going to take care of your privacy (you can read more on this in How to Evaluate a Website).
Out of those ten companies, which one do you feel is the most trustworthy....or the least? Are there Web sites that you feel should have been included - for example, I am somewhat surprised to find Google missing on this list. Let's hear it in the comments below.