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Harris Interactive
Type	public (NASDAQ - HPOL)
Founded	1956
Headquarters	Rochester, NY
Industry	public opinion research
Revenue	$212 million (2007)
Employees	about 1,000[1]
Website	http://www.harrisinteractive.com/

Harris Interactive (NASDAQ: HPOL) is an American market research company that specializes in public opinion research using both telephone and online surveys on online panels. The company is the product of a 1996 merger between the Gordon S. Black Company and Louis Harris & Associates.

Harris Interactive has produced the Harris Poll surveys of public opinion since 1963, and is a member of the National Council of Public Polls (NCPP), the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO), the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research (CMOR), and the European Society for Opinion & Marketing Research (ESOMAR).

Harris Interactive was founded by Dr. Gordon S. Black in 1975, then a professor of political science at the University of Rochester in New York. The company was originally named the Gordon S. Black Corporation. In 1996 it acquired Louis Harris & Associates, founded in 1956, from the Gannett Corporation. In 1997 the merged company renamed itself Harris Black International Ltd.^[2].

In 1997 the Internet was relatively new to the non-technical public. Harris Black International Ltd began exploring its use in the fall of that year^[3]. In December 1999 it went public and rebranded itself as Harris Interactive, a name that hinted at the increasing role of interactive surveys on the internet.

In 2000, Harris Interactive raised questions about the fairness of the mail abuse system after it was blacklisted by Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS). On July 31, 2000 it filed a law suit against AOL, HotMail, MSN, Qwest, and several other ISPs for blocking its poll participants from participating in the survey.^[4]. The suit was dropped later in September after private negotiations between the parties.^[5]

Between 2001 and 2004, Harris Interactive grew by making a series of strategic acquisitions, among them:

• the custom research division of Yankelovich Partners Inc, a prominent market research firm in the last half of the 20th century, acquired in February, 2001.^[6]
• Wirthlin Worldwide, well known for its political campaign surveys and award winning market research, acquired in September, 2004.^[7]

The Harris Poll was created in 1963 by Louis Harris & Associates. When the company merged with Harris Interactive in 1996, the poll became the property of Harris Interactive. Company Members claim that Harris Poll has over 6 million panel-members world-wide.

In 1997 Harris Interactive began developing an on-line version of the poll. It has also developed several internet based specialist polls, among them:

• Harris Interactive College Football Poll

Harris Interactives has competitors in many sectors of the market research industry^[8]. Within the interactive survey market its competitors are :

• Synovate

Up to date information about competitors may be obtained at these sites:

• Yahoo Finance - provides key financial figures relative to competitors and industry as a whole. As of 2003-03-27, the yahoo listing only considers the online survey industry.

1. ^ Harris Interactive: Information from Answers.com
2. ^ Harris Interactive| About Us| Our Herritage. Last accessed 2007-03-25.
3. ^ Harris Interactive| About Us| Our Herritage. Last accessed 2007-03-25.
4. ^ "Harris Interactive Files Suit Against AOL, Microsoft, Qwest, and other ISPs Over Restraint of Trade"
5. ^ Odell, Patricia. "Harris Interactive Drops Lawsuit Against MAPS, ISPs" in Direct, Sept 13, 2000.
6. ^ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E2D91430F936A25751C0A9679C8B63 Zippern, Andrew. "Technology briefing: Research; Harris Buys Yankelovich Unit"] in The New York Times, February 15, 2001.
7. ^ Harriis Interactive Inc - HPOL - Unscheduled Material Events. Last accessed 2004-03-26.
8. ^ Harris Interactive: Information from Answers.com