People still trust the financial services industry

Well, at least they do in the US when it comes to protection of personal data. Despite frequent stories about data being handled irresponsibly in the industry, six of the top 20 firms in the Ponemon Institute’s fifth annual survey of Most Trusted Companies for Privacy are financial services firms - and American Express holds on to the no. 1 slot for the second year running. Three of the six have fallen slightly, with one gaining and two staying the same.

Survey participants were asked to rank their choices based on their perception of how a company might be collecting, using, protecting and sharing personal information such as names, addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers and other data.

Given this, it's interesting to note the rise in online businesses, with eBay and Amazon both moving up the table this year, and Facebook and Yahoo both in the top 20 for the first time.

But given the strength of its brand, Google is conspicuous by its absence from this list. I guess when a company knows what you do online, has photos of where you live and work and stores and analyses your emails so it can serve you advertising, it needs to really go the extra mile to make the general public trust it implicitly.