American Greetings Named a Top Trusted Website in OTA's 2013 Online Trust Honor Roll

American Greetings recognized for demonstrating leadership in brand protection, online security, and privacy best practices

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American Greetings Corporation

Jun 06, 2013, 09:17 ET

CLEVELAND, June 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- American Greetings today announced it has been named to the Online Trust Alliance (OTA) 2013 Online Trust Honor Roll for demonstrating exceptional data protection, privacy and security in an effort to better protect their customers and brand from the increased threats of cybercriminals and to elevate their trust level.

OTA, a nonprofit organization that works collaboratively with industry leaders to enhance online trust, completed comprehensive audits analyzing more than 750 domains and privacy policies, approximately 10,000 web pages and more than 500 million emails for this report. The composite analysis included over a dozen attributes focusing on 1) site & server security, 2) domain, brand, email and consumer protection, and 3) privacy policy and practices. In addition to the in-depth analysis of their web sites, Domain Name Systems (DNS), outbound emails, and public records were analyzed for recent data breach incidents and FTC settlements. Key sectors audited include the Internet Retailer 500, FDIC 100, Top 50 Social Sites as well as OTA members.

"Consumers are trading billions of pieces of personal data in exchange for desired services. They rely on the integrity of the businesses collecting and storing this information to protect them," said Craig Spiezle, president and executive director of the Online Trust Alliance. "We are very pleased with the voluntary level of adoption many consumer-facing websites implemented this year that went above and beyond baseline compliance."

"Through an ongoing process we have evolved our data security and privacy practices from one of compliance to one of stewardship" said Joseph Yanoska, Vice President, Technology, American Greetings. "We're honored by the recognition the OTA has given us, and are committed to support their efforts. We share and embrace their approach to security and hope that it results in a higher level of trust from our customer base."

Nearly a third of the companies reviewed made the Honor Roll, including American Greetings. The report indicates that company size and/or sales are not true measures of the level of security and privacy a company implements. "All companies are equally evaluated by the same criterion regardless of size. We have seen large e-retailers with significant sales fail to make the Honor Roll; conversely we have seen small to mid-size companies taking top grades," said Spiezle.

Started in 2005 as an effort to drive adoption of best practices, the objectives of the Honor Roll are to 1) recognize leadership and commitment to best practices which aid in the protection of online trust and confidence in online services, 2) Enable businesses to enhance their security, data protection and privacy practices, 3) Move from compliance to stewardship, demonstrating support of meaningful self-regulation, and 4) Promote security & privacy as part of a company's brand promise and value proposition.

Being named to the 2013 Honor Roll is a significant achievement considering the large number of companies that received failing marks for inadequate domain and consumer protection (14%), insecure websites (7%), and inadequate privacy policies or data collection practices (36%).

To review the full 2013 Honor Roll report, please download a free copy at: https://otalliance.org/2013honorroll.html

About The Online Trust Alliance (OTA) https://otalliance.org
The Online Trust Alliance (OTA) is a non-profit with the mission to enhance online trust, while promoting innovation and the vitality of the internet. Our goal is to help educate businesses, policy makers and stakeholders while developing and advancing best practices and tools to enhance the protection of users' security, privacy and identity. OTA supports collaborative public-private partnerships, benchmark reporting, meaningful self-regulation and data stewardship.

About American Greetings Corporation
For more than 100 years, American Greetings Corporation (NYSE: AM) has been a creator and manufacturer of innovative social expression products that assist consumers in enhancing their relationships to create happiness, laughter and love. The Company's major greeting card lines are American Greetings, Carlton Cards, Gibson, Recycled Paper Greetings and Papyrus, and other paper product offerings include DesignWare party goods and American Greetings and Plus Mark gift-wrap and boxed cards. American Greetings also has one of the largest collections of greetings on the Web, including greeting cards available at Cardstore.com and electronic greeting cards available at AmericanGreetings.com. In addition to its product lines, American Greetings also creates and licenses popular character brands through the AG Properties group. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, American Greetings generates annual revenue of approximately $1.9 billion, and its products can be found in retail outlets worldwide. For more information on the Company, visit http://corporate.americangreetings.com.

SOURCE American Greetings Corporation