The Ponemon Institute has released their 2012 Most Trusted Companies for Privacy list, and for the first time in three years, Apple is not in the top 20 on the list.
The iPhone maker, once listed in the top ten most trusted companies, fell six spots this year to land at number 21, according to the latest rankings of the 2012 Most Trusted Companies list published its this week. The annual study asked participants to name the companies they believed most trustworthy in protecting the privacy of their personal information.
Apple ranked its highest in 2009, reaching eighth place on the list. However, the next two years saw Apple slip in the rankings, dropping to 12th place in 2010 and 14th in 2011.
At the top of the list: American Express, Hewlett Packard, Amazon, IBM, and the US Postal Service.
User privacy has long been a strong point for Apple. When it was revealed last year that the “Path” app was was uploading users’ address books without their permission, Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly grilled Path co-founder Dave Morin over the issue. Following that incident, Apple announced new privacy protections, saying they would require apps to explicitly request permission before accessing contact information.
Also, last summer Apple announced a new tracking tool for mobile developers that would allow app makers to serve ads and collect location and preference information without exposing identifiable information about users or their devices.
This did not prevent the U.S. Federal Trade Commission from publishing a report in December saying “app stores” such as those operated by Apple and Google don’t do enough to protect children’s privacy.
In the survey, participants were asked to name five companies in any of 25 different industries they trusted most with protecting their information. 100,000 adult consumers were queried, the study yielded 6,704 usable responses.
