Is This a Joke? eBay and Verizon Win Privacy Award
In a surprise announcement, eBay, and Verizon have been awarded the top titles of "Most Trusted Companies for Privacy" by the Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe. According to a recent survey, these companies were shown to offer clear privacy statements, customer-friendly notices, great access to information, solid cookie management and sound data sharing practices. While the companies may excel on paper, it's hard to believe these are the top privacy-related companies based on public sentiment alone. It appears that the Ponemon Institute's expert panel and the 6,486 US consumers surveyed have lost their long term memories.
When it comes to privacy, eBay has had its fair share of controversies. Despite the fact that it recently announced plans to sell the majority of Skype, it was under eBay that the internet telephony company admitted to a privacy breach by its Chinese partner TOM Online. Not only was the company discovered to be filtering out and saving politically charged messages containing words like "Dalai Lama" and "Tibet", but a security breech allowed others to gain access to those messages on TOM's servers. A Citizen Lab report entitled Breaching Trust went so far as to accuse TOM Online of complying to government surveillance. While some of these actions may be considered necessary to offer services in a foreign country, US privacy advocates are adamant against all those who comply with the "Great Firewall of China".
While Verizon was one of the first companies brave enough to stand up against the RIAA's file sharing crackdowns, in recent years the company has come under fire for its own privacy offenses. In early 2009, the company was ordered by the FCC to stop its aggressive marketing practices. When customers were porting from phone to cable services Verizon was illegally using proprietary client information in its last chance to retain fleeing customers. Meanwhile, in March the company was widely criticized in the blogosphere for its efforts to share customer info with affiliates through an overly complicated 45 day opt-out campaign. The information to be shared with affiliates included services purchased (including call records), billing info and location info.
Although eBay and Verizon do have their merits as service providers, they hardly deserve to receive today's accolades. It looks as if these announcements are more about rewarding privacy policies rather than practices.
Photo Credit: Rob Pongsajapan
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It's all about how you package the application to Ponemon Institute. Same goes for best place to work. I know a few people that specialize in just this.
This is ironic-Skype has sued e-bay for copyright violations, and they are among the most trustworthy companies in the world?
Well, It's really a strange news that ebay and verizon win the privacy awards because by this award it is clear that these two provide good customer services and we hope that they keep on proving themselves...
This is a big joke indeed...
Take a look at how these top-rated companies allow third-party tracking companies to collect information about consumers on their sites:
http://wp.me/pscko-co
This just goes to prove that money talks.
Where are companies like http://www.yauba.com or http://www.tor.org on this list? Yauba and Tor should be the winners, not ebay!!!
This is a halloween prank. Corrupt eBay is clearlyn the worst site for safe, fair, even dealings. Why do you think sellers leave in the thousands daily to better sites like Bonanzle.com and iOffer.com? If Verison and eBay are on a goody two shoes list, that has to be a joke. Why not put Craig's List on it as well, then you have Moe, Larry & Curley !
A brilliant strategy adopted by adobe to diversify it's business. With Omniture becoming a new business unit within Adobe, Adobe is sure achieve a greater ROI and will increase it's value in the eyes of the customers.
Thank you for pointing out the REAL truth about these two companies. It guess having friends in high places gets you all the awards you want, whether they are deserved or not.
When ebay was posting quarterly losses, quarter after quarter, their analyst buddies were talking them up like it was the hottest stock around. It's always about who you know and how deep your pockets are and little to do with the real truth.