American Express Membership Rewards - AMEX recognized for progressive user privacy practices

http://www.truste.org/about/press_release/12_15_08.php

Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe Announce Results of Annual Most Trusted Companies for Privacy Survey

American Express, eBay, IBM are top-three; Facebook Breaks Into Top 20

Traverse City, Michigan and San Francisco, California (December 15, 2008) - Privacy and information security research company Ponemon Institute along with TRUSTe, the most widely recognized Internet privacy trustmark, today announced the results of the Ponemon Institute’s fifth annual survey of Most Trusted Companies for Privacy. The study asked 6,486 adult-aged U.S. consumers which companies they thought were most trustworthy and which did the best job safeguarding personal information. A total of 706 companies were named by consumers; 211 made the final list of most trusted companies.

American Express ranked as the Most Trusted Company for 2008 for Privacy, retaining its place from last year despite the current financial climate. eBay earned a ranking as the second most trusted company, while IBM, Amazon, and Johnson & Johnson rounded out the top five.

IMHO, Amex was not recognized for HAVING good privacy protection for customers. Rather, it was recognized by folks it pays for various services for being thought by surveyed consumers to be trustworthy--and, they could be wrong. ;)

Whether it has good privacy policies--or whether it is trustworthy is another issue. @:-)

i'd like to know more about the distribution sample of 6500 people surveyed.

what are the chances all of the 6500 had enough dealing with the 5 companies listed to be able to make an informed decision on all of this?