Last month we looked at the Reputation Institute's ranking of American companies based on sincerity of messaging. This month, a joint study by the Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe, the online privacy company, approached their ranking by peoples' level of trust.

Of the five years the study has been conducted, American Express has led the ranking four times. As expected, other financial services companies lost footing. The "don't be evil" empire Google somehow dropped from 10th to somewhere out of the top 20. I guess you have to break a few eggs when cooking an omelet of innovation. eBay somehow popped from #8 to #2--because more people are experiencing the auction site due to belt tightening?

The comparison of the top ten companies from 2007 to 2008 is available after the jump:

[via SFGate.com]