For the second year in a row, social media sites (including gaming and dating sites) are leading the way in consumer security and privacy protections, beating out Internet retailers and banks, according to an annual comprehensive audit by the Online Trust Alliance (OTA). Even though social sites led the pack in OTA's audit, the general trend for consumer security and privacy protection is good, says Craig Spiezle, president and executive director of OTA.

The sites that performed the best in the adoption of 14 industry accepted best practices, open standards and privacy practices, and criteria and best practices advocated by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) were named to OTA's Online Trust Honor Roll.