The Harris Poll was begun by Louis Harris in 1963 to have a continuing measure of public opinion. In 1970, Harris acquired Humphrey Taylor's firm, where Humphrey was the leading strategist and pollster for the conservative party and for Margaret Thatcher in the UK. In January 1992 at age 70, Lou Harris retired from Louis Harris & Associates, owned by Gannett Corporation at that time, and formed his second company, LH Associates. His initial company, and The Harris Poll, was then acquired by Gordon S. Black Corporation in 1996, which in 1997 became Harris Black International Ltd., which became a public company in 1999 called Harris Interactive. In the 21st century, it was owned by Nielsen beginning in 2014; then in 2017, Stagwell Group acquired The Harris Poll and the polling company, taking it private. Mergers, acquisitions, and sale of business The Gordon S. Black Corporation was founded in 1975 in Rochester, New York as a New York corporation. It formed and became part of the Delaware corporation now known as Harris Interactive in 1997. During these years, the company's acquisitions have included: February 1996 – all of the stock of Louis Harris % Associates, Inc., headquartered in New York. February 2001 – the custom research division of Yankelovich Partners, Inc., headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut. August 2001 – all of the capital stock of Market Research Solutions Limited, a privately owned UK company headquartered in Oxford, England. September 2001 – all of the capital stock of M&A Create Limited, a privately owned company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. November 2001 – all of the capital stock of Total Research Corporation, a Delaware corporation headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey. March 2004 – all of the capital stock of Novatris, S.A. ("Novatris"), a share corporation organized and existing under the laws of France. September 2004 – all of the capital stock of Wirthlin Worldwide, Inc. a privately held California corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. April 2007 – all of the capital stock of MediaTransfer AG Netresearch & Consulting, a privately held German stock corporation headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. August 2007 – all of the capital stock of Decima Research Inc. ("Decima"), a corporation incorporated in Ontario, Canada. August 2007 – all of the capital stock of Marketshare Limited, a company incorporated under the laws of Hong Kong, and Marketshare Pte Ltd, a company incorporated under the laws of Singapore. February 2014 – Harris