Golesworthy noted a significant decrease in the amount of data shared with unrelated third parties; just 3 percent of the companies did that, down from 11 percent that shared customer data in the last study. "What we found is there is almost no sharing of data with unrelated third parties anymore in this industry," he said.

He noted that while many companies stopped sharing information with unrelated third parties, they are sharing more data with business partners without first asking customers' permission.

"Generally speaking, privacy has been cleaned up quite a lot in this particular industry," Golesworthy said. "Before, it was a nice thing to do if you wanted to be a good corporate citizen. Now, the companies are finding it's affecting revenue."

In terms of e-mail, Golesworthy said the high-tech industry is among the worst offenders when it comes to ignoring customer queries, he said. "In most industries, we're seeing it coming down to the 10 percent to 15 percent range that don't get responded to, whereas the high-tech industry is still in the 30 percent range," Golesworthy said. "So they're very poor at responding, and what we've found this time is that previously very good performers are starting to fall down now."

The Customer Respect Group was so concerned about that finding that it called companies and asked why they weren't responding to e-mails.