Top 10 Most Trusted US Brands

Tech brands have earned consumer trust for privacy, rubbing shoulders with some of the most established brands in America says a new study released by The Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe.

Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe conducted a two-stage survey to gauge the privacy policies and practices of leading consumer brands. First, the companies were rated as “most trusted” in an unaided survey of 6,486 adult-aged U.S. consumers. Second, an expert review panel at the Ponemon Institute judged the companies based on rigorous criteria, including the clarity and readability of privacy statements, notice, access to account information, cookie management, in- and out-of-network data sharing practices, as well as the availability of customer service staff.

According to the 2009 survey results, eBay is the Most Trusted Company for Privacy, proving that the e-commerce site can protect consumer privacy, while handling massive volumes of sensitive data. For the first time a telecommunications company made the top 10. Verizon earned the ranking as the second most trusted company. Despite negative press coverage on Facebook’s privacy problem, the 300 million user social networking company broke into the top 10, indicating Facebook’s new privacy practices re approved by both their user community and privacy experts.

Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, Ponemon Institute said, “Year in and year out our Most Trusted Companies for Privacy study is a fascinating snapshot of public sentiment toward business.With the banking industry at the center of a national financial crisis, it’s no surprise to see a loss of trust reflected in the rankings of even those top performers on this list. Meanwhile, the continued strong showing of e-businesses such as eBay, WebMD, Yahoo!, and Facebookseems to demonstrate consumers’ growing comfort with doing business online.”

2009 Award Winners

1. eBay
2. Verizon
3. US Postal Service
4. WebMD
5. IBM
6. Procter & Gamble
7. Nationwide
8. Intuit
9. Yahoo!
10. Facebook

The Ponemon Institute is a privacy-focused research center. TRUSTe is a privacy services and seal provider. The #1 ranked auction site eBay, the #2 ranked cell phone provider Verizon and #10 ranked Facebook are Gold Award Winners in their respective categories on TopTenREVIEWS.

Bing Eats Away at Google and Yahoo

It appears that the evolution introduced by Microsoft with the move from Live Search to Bing is paying off. The Redmond company introduced Bing in a move designed to grab market share from Google and Yahoo, and according to the latest statistics made public by Internet metrics companies comScore and Nielsen, Microsoft is doing just that. According to both firms Bing is on an ascendant path and has crossed the 10% milestone. While the results posted differ slightly, the general trend of Bing is positive, with the search/decision engine convincing more and more users to leverage it for their queries.

“In November 2009, Americans conducted 14.4 billion core searches, with Google Sites accounting for 65.6% search market share, up slightly from 65.4% in October. Microsoft Sites grabbed 10.3% market share, up 0.4 percentage points versus October,” revealed comScore. “Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in November with 65.6% of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites (17.5%), and Microsoft Sites (10.3%). Ask Network captured 3.8% of the search market, followed by AOL LLC with 2.8%.”

According to comScore Google all but stagnated between October and November 2009, while Yahoo managed to drop from 18.0% to 17.5%. In the same period, Bing’s share of the search engine market grew from 9.9% to 10.3%. On the US market, Google grabbed 9.5 billion searches in November, Yahoo just 2.5 billion and Bing 1.5 billion.

The Nielsen Company credits Bing with no less than 10.7% of the search engine market, just over 1 billion searches. According to the statistics provided by Nielsen, Bing jumped 1% from October, when it accounted for a share of just 9.7% of the market. Nielsen put Yahoo at 15.3% at the end of November, down from 15.4% the previous month, and Google at 65.4%, a consistent drop from 66.1% in October, which apparently went to Bing.