Amazon takes top spot by wide margin, but technology least-trusted sector

In a study of more than 2,600 consumers released exclusively with Business Insider, market and advertising research firm Upwave today released its “Tech Trust Index,” a ranking of the top 15 tech brands most trusted by consumers’ with their personal data.
The Index, which asked consumers to rate many of the most well-known tech brands from one to five (one being most trusted; five being least trusted), found that Amazon was by far and away the most-trusted tech brand with an average score of 1.87. Amazon was the only company with a rating under two (2), with Paypal coming in second place with a 2.05 average rating.
The rest of the top 15 ranked as follows: Microsoft (2.13), Apple (2.26), IBM (2.41), Yahoo (2.43), Google (2.53), YouTube (2.58), eBay (2.78), Pandora (2.88), Facebook (2.90), Linkedin (2.97), Spotify (3.16), AOL (3.20) and Instagram (3.24).

Facebook, which recently has been at the center of a lot of consumer data controversy, seemed to create the most polarization among consumers, as they overwhelmingly either ranked it as most trusted (1) or least trusted (5).
In addition to identifying the top 15 most-trusted tech brands, Upwave also studied consumers on a number of other questions regarding their data preferences. Those results include:

• -58 percent of consumers would not pay a tech platform a nominal fee to avoid it using their data. Only 8 percent said they would, with 34 percent unsure.

-A surprisingly large one-third (33 percent) of consumers value the convenience technology adds to their lives more than their data privacy. However, the youngest age group (18-24) was the most likely (42 percent) to value convenience more than data privacy.
-The consumer-technology sector was the least-trusted sector by consumers, even losing significantly to retailers, which have had their own battles with high-profile breaches. Unsurprisingly, healthcare was the most-trusted sector.
-Nearly 70 percent of consumers think they should control when and how a public tech platform uses their data, even if they voluntarily put that data on that platform.
Upwave conducted its Tech Trust Index study from April 23-26, interviewing 2,601 consumers.