Worried about the safety of your personal information? On second thought, maybe you’re not — if you shop with your American Express card, surf eBay or use an IBM system.
 
Those three companies are consumers’ picks for the top most trusted when it comes to protecting their customers’ privacy, according to a survey by TRUSTe, a consumer privacy protection organization, and the Ponemon Institute, an independent research group. 
 
Consumers reported that identity theft is the No. 1 factor influencing their view of how companies handle privacy concerns, with only 45 percent of respondents saying they felt they had control over how their personal information was used or shared. That’s down from 56 percent two years ago.
    
The worries over data security are real — companies from discount retailer TJX Cos to Bank of New York Mellon Corp have had major data breaches compromising the personal information of millions of consumers.
    
The top ten list is rounded out by Amazon.com, Johnson & Johnson, the U.S. Postal Service (which shares the No. 6 spot with Hewlett Packard), Procter & Gamble, Apple, Nationwide, and Charles Schwab.
    
The survey, now in its fifth year, polled nearly 6,500 U.S. adults to determine their view of the most trustworthy companies and brands when it comes to protecting personal information.
    
Companies including Disney, AOL and Dell made it to the top 20 list, with Yahoo, FedEx, Facebook and Verizon joining that group for the first time since 2004, when the Ponemon Institute began conducting research on the topic. It was also the first time for Apple, at No 8.

Google, whose growing dominance of the search market has prompted questions over how it uses its data, found itself ousted from the Top 20 list this year, as were Countrywide and Bank of America.

Online retailer Overstock.com is pitching a rescue package for shoppers who are neck-deep in debt.

The company’s “Family Bailout” contest will pay off up to $50,000 in debt belonging to the winner or a member of his or her immediate family. The money gets paid directly to “qualified” creditors like mortgage or credit card companies.

The retailer, which sells excess inventory of clothes, furniture and other items, automatically enters people in the contest when they make an order. People who are too broke to shop or those who want to have the company bail out a friend, can fill out an online form on the site.

“We’re sinking into the most challenging economic environment since the
Great Depression,” said Patrick Byrne, Overstock.com’s chairman and CEO. “This
is our way of lending a helping hand to those that need it.”

Overstock’s move is just the latest effort by a retailer to entice shoppers as the industry heads into what could be its most dismal holiday sales season since the early 1990s.

Amazon.com is already running ads touting deals for a limited time. Items on sale on Monday included a Nikon Coolpix 10-megapixel digital camera for $146.95 (a savings of  $53, according to the website).

Online jeweler Blue Nile began offering a personalized shopping service to help find or order jewelry — a segment that has taken a painful blow from consumer cutbacks in the past few months. The company is betting good customer service is crucial to winning over consumers this holiday season.

The Internet shopping wars are on — may one lucky consumer win some credit relief.

(Graphic/Overstock.com)

Feeling guilty about giving an uninspired gift card in this uninspired holiday season? How about a little pizzazz?

Amazon.com is dressing up its electronic gift cards this year, partnering with HDGreetings, which makes animated, high definition e-cards.

 That means an Amazon gift card this season can include your own photos, text, or music.
    
“This is definitely a step up for us in terms of the personalized content,” said Michal Geller, Amazon’s director of consumer gift cards.
    
Experts have been predicting that the once-hot holiday gift card market will be down this year, given the flood of bargains shoppers can find in stores. 
    
The National Retail Federation predicted this week that sales would fall 6 percent from last year’s levels and found that gift card shoppers planned to spend less on the cards.
    
But Amazon’s Geller said the company was “relatively bullish” on the prospect for gift cards this year, saying that as yet, he had noticed no behavior changes in its card purchasers. 
    
HDGreetings CEO Jennifer Sharp said it can take hours of work and cost up to $20,000 to produce each holiday animated card on offer at HDGreetings.
   
But it takes only a few seconds to personalize the cards, inserting photos of the gift giver or friends directly into a 3D winter wonderland. 
    
Moreover, the animated greeting can also be viewed on the iPhone, because HDGreetings’ platform is player-neutral.

Image courtesy of HDGreetings

(Due to a tabulation error in the research, STORES Magazine has issued a corrected list. This is being corrected to remove Coldwater Creek from the Top 10 list and replace it with Citi Trends at No. 10) 

Though the retail industry cooled last year to its slowest growth since 2002, a number of retail companies experienced fiery growth, according to the National Retail Federation. The hottest retailers, in general, grew through acquisitions, according to the trade group’s STORES Magazine.

NRF’s 2008 Hot 100 Retailers list, which will be included in STORES’ August issue, ranks the nation’s fastest-growing retailers that are publicly traded and have more than $100 million in annual sales.

Topping the list this year is CVS Caremark, which grew 2007 revenue by 74 percent because of its acquisition of Caremark. The No. 2 spot also went to a drugstore chain — Rite Aid, which purchased Brooks Pharmacy units in New England and Eckerd on the East Coast, saw revenue grow narly 40 percent. IHOP, which recently changed its name to DineEquity Inc, was No. 3 with last year’s purchase of Applebee’s.

WalMart, the world’s largest retailer, clocked in at No. 80, with 8.6 percent growth. Its mass market rival Target Corp, brought up the rear at No. 100, with 6.5 percent revenue growth.

Here is a list of the top 10 retailers, according to STORES Magazine: 

          1. CVS Caremark

          2. Rite Aid

          3. IHOP

          4. Amazon.com

          5. American Apparel

          6. GameStop

          7. BJ’s Restaurants

          8. Chipotle Mexican Grill

          9. FTD

          10. Citi Trends

     (Photo: Reuters)