IBM Takes Top Honors in Data Protection

When it comes to protecting personal information, IBM is the top dog among technology companies, according to the latest customer survey by security researcher Ponemon Institute.

Among all industries, IBM (NYSE: IBM) ranks second only to American Express (NYSE: AXP) and ahead of HP (NYSE: HPQ), No. 4 overall, and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY), which checked in at No. 5.

The Traverse City, Mich.-based researchers said the rankings were derived from responses given by 6,627 U.S. adults that included more than 38,000 individual company ratings, 229 of which were mentioned at least 20 times.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and AT&T (NYSE: T) were among the new brands that made this year’s top 20 after failing to make the list last year. Meanwhile, Facebook dropped off the list after the social networking site endured a series of serious security breaches and malware issues throughout 2009, as well as the ongoing controversies that have attended several rounds of changes to the site’s information-collection policies.

“2009 was a tumultuous year for privacy, as illustrated by Facebook’s drop out of the top 20 in a year when they found themselves at the center of a very public debate over the evolution of their privacy policies and settings,” Larry Ponemon, the Ponemon Institute’s chairman and founder, said in the report.

Read the rest at eSecurity Planet.