Top 12 Retailers for Security and Privacy Practices

As it has done every year for the past four years, the Online Trust Alliance (OTA) has conducted an annual Online Trust Honor Roll audit to recognize online companies whose efforts to enhance the security and privacy of user’s data lead the industry. OTA audited members of the Internet Retailer 500 to create a composite score based on three key areas of competency: domain, brand and consumer protection; site, server and infrastructure security; and data protection, privacy and transparency. While the OTA keeps final rankings private, it says these 10 companies (actually 12 due to a couple of ties), presented in alphabetical order, are the top of the heap. (For more on the OTA scoring system, click here.)

Headquartered in Seattle, Wash., and with offices, fulfillment centers, warehouses, customer service centers and software development centers on five continents, Amazon.com is the world’s largest online retailer. It sells everything from books to DVDs, CDs, software, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, jewelry, digital content and cloud services.

Based in Brooklyn, Ohio, American Greetings is the world’s largest publicly traded greeting card company. It also has its fingers in gift wrap products, party goods, giftware, stationary, electronic greetings, calendars and education products. While OTA does not make public the rankings of companies within the top 10, it did say that American Greetings took home the top score among retailers.

Big Fish Games, based in Seattle, Wash., is a provider of Internet media delivery software and games. The company says is serves more than 1.5 million downloads per day.

A provider of OEM factory parts for motorcycles, as well as aftermarket parts, accessories and gear, BikeBandit.com is based in San Diego, Calif. It claims to offer the largest selection of powersports items in the world—more than 8 million—and to ship more than 10,000 items per day.

The smallest retailer on the list (it’s number 453 on the Internet Retailer 500 list), Books-A-Million (or BAM) operates the booksamillion.com ecommerce division along with an Internet development and services company and more than 200 book stores in the South, Midwest and Northeast U.S. Its headquarters are in Birmingham, Ala.

iHerb is an online provider of nutritional supplements, bath and beauty products, groceries, sports nutrition products and other health products based in Moreno Valley, Calif. It sells both domestically and internationally.

A subsidiary of the men’s lifestyle brand Thrillist, Columbus, Ohio-based JackThreads is an online shopping site intended to curate top-tier street, skate, surf and contemporary fashion brands. It’s a membership-based site; users must request an invitation through the Website before using it.

Based in Delray Beach, Fla., Levenger is a specialty retail company that produces leather bags, briefcases and folios, writing instruments and note-taking products. It’s committed to a value it calls “Conscious Capitalism,” or capitalism with a conscience.

A deal-of-the-day site that features discount gift certificates for local and national companies, LivingSocial boasts more than 70 million members around the world. It is based in Washington, D.C. The site won its ranking despite a hack of its database earlier this year that affected 50 million registered users. Credit card numbers were not stored on the hacked database, and the user information that was exposed had previously been encrypted.

With more than 36.3 million subscribers, Los Gatos, Calif.-based Netflix is a provider of streaming media in North and South America, the Caribbean, the U.K., Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. It has also begun moving into the original programming space with offerings like House of Cards, Lilyhammer, Arrested Development and Hemlock Grove.

A subsidiary of Ralph Lauren Corp., Ralph Lauren Media is based in High Point, N.C. It designs, markets and distributes luxury apparel products including men’s, women’s and children’s clothing and accessories.

Based in Madison, Wis., RockAuto is a dealer of automobile parts and supplies. It offers worldwide shipment of new auto parts directly to customers, including axles, brakes, engines, exhaust systems, radiators, sensors, steering components, suspensions, transmissions and more.