The University of Canberra’s Centre for Internet Safety has produced the 2013 Australian Online Privacy Index to rate the websites most visited by Australians. The report found that Australian-based sites rank among the best, the majority are not compliant with changes to the Privacy Act which comes into force in March 2014.
“We reviewed privacy policies along with the number and duration of tracking cookies. Government websites ranked the best, followed by those from the banking & finance sector. The worst was a US-based photo sharing website,” Nigel Phair, co-director of the Centre for Internet Safety.
Mr Phair explained that the Victorian Government led the list with the best privacy policy, while the worst privacy policy was held by the photo-sharing site www.imgur.com. Harveynorman.com.au had the highest number of tracking cookies among Australian websites.

The top sites with best privacy policies:
1) www.vic.gov.au
2) www.westpac.com.au
3) www.australiapost.com.au
4) www.jbhifi.com.au
5) www.suncorpbank.com.au
6) www.stgeorge.com.au
7) www.ebay.com.au
8) www.commbank.com.au

The 10 websites with the highest tracking cookie count:
1) imgur.com
2) dailymail.co.uk
3) harveynorman.com.au
4) cnet.com
5) guardian.co.uk
6) officeworks.com.au
7) news.com.au
8) realestate.com.au
9) ninemsn.com.au
10) ebay.com.au