Google reputation hits top spot

INTERNET GIANT GOOGLE has been named the company with the best reputation in America by a Harris Poll released today.

By allowing employees to spend 20 per cent of work time on idea-generating side projects, providing them with high salaries and quirky perks like "nap pods", where they can rest their weary heads on breaks, Google has finally managed to push Microsoft from its top spot.

The Vole actually fell to tenth place in the annual Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient poll, but overall, the tech sector did outstandingly well this year.

Google, Intel and Mightysoft were all within the top 10, whilst Hewlett-Packard/Compaq was the biggest gainer and the fruity toy maker Apple also made giant strides up the table from last year.

The poll, which rated the reputations of 60 top US Companies and corporate America overall, was carried out in two separate giant waves. First, Harris narrowed the list down to 60 companies by asking 7,105 Americans to name two corporations that stood out in their minds for having very positive or very negative reputations. Then, six months later, Harris’ pollsters asked a further 20,477 people to rate the chosen 60 firms on 20 attributes, including emotional appeal, the quality of their products and social responsibility.

According to Harris, the companies which most prominently feature on the list are either consumer product firms (like Coca Cola and Kraft foods) or tech companies. Women apparently tended to nominate consumer product companies when polled, whereas a majority of men tended to list tech firms when approached by Harris’ pollsters.

The senior vice president of Harris, Robert Fronk, noted that the firms high up on the list "get tremendous credit for the social responsibility, which for them is also linked with their vision and leadership."

Intel's Director of Corporate Responsibility, Dave Stangis, gushed, "we are extremely proud to be ranked among these leaders and to see that consumers place value in our products, our workplace and our business success." No accounting for consumer taste, apparently.

Companies which the American public perceives as evil and up to no good unsurprisingly included the US airline industry, which keeps announcing employee pay cuts in the same breath as announcing higher fares and nasty little add-on fees for anything from checking in baggage to in-flight meals.

Oil companies also ended up tarred and feathered by the rankings and US cable company Comcast likewise came close to rock bottom. µ