According to a recent poll taken by the Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe in San Francisco, Google has fallen off the most trust companies list along with Countrywide Financial, Bank of America and Weight Watchers.

This has almost everything to do with the recent rise in piracy, with only 45 percent of the users stating that they felt they have control over their personal information. On top of that, 60 percent of the surveyors claimed that identity theft negatively impacts their thoughts about a company. “Consumers are getting more astute about” privacy, stated Fran Maier, CEO of TRUSTe, a company that evaluates online privacy practices.

Top 10 Most Trusted for 2008:

1.) American Express

2.) eBay

3.) IBM

4.) Amazon

5.) Johnson & Johnson

6.) Hewlett Packard / U.S. Postal Service

7.) Procter & Gamble

8.) Apple

9.) Nationwide

10.) Charles Schwab

Image Credit: Google, Ray-Ban Sunglasses