Harris Interactive (NASDAQ: HPOL) is an American market research company that specializes in public opinion research using both telephone and world-wide web 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 US 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 and Marketing Research (ESOMAR). It creates many polls specially for the Channel 4 TV show 8 out of 10 Cats.

History

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..