Facebook has had its share of privacy issues, ranging from the controversy surrounding the Beacon advertising system to the more recent changes the company made to its policies to comply with Canadian law.

Nonetheless, the company has seemingly been able to earn the trust of the American population on the whole, as TRUSTe has named Facebook as one of its ten most trusted companies in privacy. Facebook placed tenth in the study, while eBay, Verizon, and the USPS were the top three.

So how did TRUSTe, which provides privacy seals to thousands of websites, come to this conclusion? Their methodology:

“The Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe conducted a two-stage survey to gauge the privacy policies and practices of leading consumer brands. First, the companies were rated as “most trusted” in an unaided survey of 6,486 adult-aged U.S. consumers. Second, an expert review panel at the Ponemon Institute judged the companies based on rigorous criteria, including the clarity and readability of privacy statements, notice, access to account information, cookie management, in- and out-of-network data sharing practices, as well as the availability of customer service staff.”

Wondering does privacy = trust for service companies as quality = trust for product manufacturers?