OPINION

Household names that just can't keep a secret

Life, James Hein, Published on 06/02/2013

» So which companies do you trust? Every year for the past seven, independent research group the Ponemon Institute has published a report on the Most Trusted Companies for Privacy. This US-based survey asks 100,000 adults to rate the larger organisations out there. This year, AmEx, HP, Amazon and IBM made the top four. Microsoft and eBay also got into the top 20, but Apple and Google didn't _ for the first time in several years. The problem is that people these days no longer trust IT organisations, believing that they have precious little regard for users' privacy. In fact, the prevailing opinion is that these firms collect users' personal info and profit from it, either by using it themselves or by selling the data to others.