News notes
Los Angeles media subscription service Hulu has been sued for violating federal law for illegally sharing users’ viewing history with Facebook, San Francisco, and comScore Inc., a Reston, Va., research company. The lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of Hulu users nationwide and was brought by several people in California, Illinois and New York seeking damages of at least $2,500 per violation, plus punitive damages and other sums.
In San Francisco, U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler rejected Hulu’s argument that viewers needed to show actual injury to recover damages, even if they qualified as “aggrieved” persons under a 1988 federal law protecting the privacy of video renters. Beeler concluded that “the statute requires only injury in the form of a wrongful disclosure” before damages might be available. She did not rule on the merits of the case.
Nashville, Tenn., research company Dataium has reached a $400,000 settlement agreement for a lawsuit brought by the State of New Jersey, alleging that Dataium tracked Web users without consent, also known as history sniffing, and selling personally-identifiable information on to Acxiom, a Little Rock, Ark., information company, again without notice or permission.
Several law firms have launched investigations into potential claims against the board of directors of Rochester, N.Y., research company Harris Interactive related to the proposed acquisition of the company by New York researcher The Nielsen Company.
This investigation concerns whether Harris Interactive’s board of directors breached its fiduciary duties to stockholders by failing to adequately shop the company before agreeing to enter into the proposed transaction and whether the company disclosed all material information to shareholders about the transaction.
Among the firms investigating are the Law Offices of Howard G. Smith; Faruqi & Faruqi LLP; The Young Law Firm; Levi & Korsinsky LLP; Wohl & Fruchter LLP; Rigrodsky & Long P.A.; and Former SEC Attorney Willie Briscoe and Powers Taylor LLP.
Following an almost-three-year investigation, Indian authorities have arrested the masterminds behind the Speak Asia survey fraud. In 2011, ESOMAR, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, along with MRSI (now ORC International), a Cincinnati research company, actively advocated strict action against Speak Asia, which had been allegedly running pyramid fraud multilevel marketing schemes that encouraged participants to pay large sums of money to become members of Speak Asia, where they would receive rewards for completing research questionnaires/surveys.
On November 25, 2013, the Delhi police crime branch arrested one of the senior Speak Asia executives accused of defrauding gullible participants of an estimated Rs 2,200 crores ($350,000).
Food Perspectives Inc., a Plymouth, Minn., research company, has been certified as a Women’s Business Enterprise by the Women’s Business Development Center – Chicago. The certification confirms the business is at least 51 percent owned, operated and controlled by a woman or women.
Acquisitions/transactions
London research company BDRC Group has acquired Viewpoint Field and Studios, London. Viewpoint will continue to operate as a stand-alone qualitative field and studio business, complementing the work carried out by Perspective Research Services, London, which is also part of the BDRC Group.
U.S. audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG LLP has acquired Link Analytics LLC, an Atlanta research company.
St. Louis customer experience company Answers Corporation has acquired Ann Arbor, Mich., research company ForeSee Results Inc.
San Francisco research software company Splunk Inc. has acquired Mountain View, Calif., big data analytics company Cloudmeter Inc.
Westport, Conn., research company IMS Health has acquired Pygargus, a Stockholm, Sweden, analytics firm.
Yahoo!, Sunnyvale, Calif., has acquired New York natural language processing company SkyPhrase. SkyPhrase’s team of four will join the Yahoo! Labs team in New York.
Apple, Cupertino, Calif., has acquired San Francisco research company Topsy Labs to help with social media analytics.
Montreal research company Seevibes has acquired TvTweet, a Bordeaux, France, social TV measurement firm.
New York researcher The Nielsen Company has agreed to acquire Rochester, N.Y., research company Harris Interactive for $2 per share for a total of $116.6 million.
U.K. research company RealityMine has acquired New York research company USA TouchPoints.
Target Research Group Inc., Nanuet, N.Y., has purchased A&G Research Inc., Montvale, N.J.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Stagnito Media’s Retail Leader Group, Chicago, has formed a strategic partnership with the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), an Arlington, Va., research company. FMI will be featured in every issue of Research Leader, sharing content in the areas of food safety, public affairs, education, research, industry relations programs, etc.
Research companies Ipsos MediaCT, New York, and I-Behavior Inc., Louisville, Colo., have partnered allow I-Behavior to onboard and distribute digital audience segments based on the Ipsos Affluent Survey USA.
Research companies IRI, Chicago, and Intage, Tokyo, have partnered to give IRI clients access to Japanese retail point-of-sale data via the IRI Global Executive Market Reviews service. In turn, Intage will provide CPG and retail information and insights to their clients from all markets IRI serves.
Association/organization news
The Council for Research Excellence (CRE), New York, has approved the following members: Judy Vogel of Gannett Company Inc.; Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson LLC; and Bryon Schafer of Warner Bros. Television. All three were prior CRE members while with other companies and were readmitted.
Awards/rankings
Jamin Brazil of Fresno, Calif., research company Decipher Inc. has been named a winner in the Executive of the Year category for the 2013 Best in Biz Awards. The award recognizes services and products that reflect the most current trends in technology.
Coyne Research, Dublin, Ireland, won the Grand Prix award from the Marketing Society, Middlesex, U.K., for work it carried out for retailer Lidl Ireland.
New accounts/projects
Watermelon Research, London, has chosen Oslo, Norway, research software company Confirmit to provide interactive voice response and online market research for its clients.
Additionally, Farmington Hills, Mich., research company Morpace Inc. has selected Confirmit’s Confirmit SODA app to power its mobile research initiatives.
Tenthwave Digital, a New York marketing agency, has adopted Boston research company Crimson Hexagon’s ForSight social media monitoring and analytics platform.
Acxiom, a Little Rock, Ark., information company, has signed a multi-year agreement with Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG), Chicago, to provide SMG clients access to Acxiom’s Audience Operating System.
Portland, Ore., research company Rentrak Corp. has signed a multi-year contract with Mad Men Marketing Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., for Rentrak’s StationView Essentials TV ratings service. Rentrak has also signed a multi-year local TV ratings contract with West Virginia Media for eight stations.
Spotlight Research, Poland, has adopted the Beacon research and reporting platform from Decrypt, the London branch of Fresno, Calif., research company Decipher Inc.
The GfK Group, a Nuremberg, Germany, research company, has been chosen by four of Brazil’s broadcasters, Band TV, Record, RedeTV! and SBT, to provide TV audience measurement, effective 2015.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
London research company Kantar has merged its Kantar Retail division with London research company TNS’ Retailer & Shopper practice to form a new organization that will operate under the Kantar Retail name.
New York research company Millward Brown has opened an office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Piotr Chodakowski will lead the operation.
Palo Alto, Calif., research software company SurveyMonkey has announced plans to open an office in London in first-quarter 2014.
London research company YouthSight has moved its offices to Crystal Gate, 6th floor, 28/30 Worship Street. All other contact information will remain the same.
Communications agency Asda’a Burson-Marsteller has launched Penn Schoen Berland, the company’s first Middle East office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Researcher Naim ul Qadar, formerly of uSamp India, has launched NextON Services Private Limited, a New Delhi, India, research company. The company is online at www.nextonservices.com.
Berlin research company SensoMotoric Instruments has opened an office in San Francisco.
Polaris Marketing Research Inc. has relocated its Atlanta headquarters to 11175 Cicero Drive, Suite 100, Alpharetta, Ga. All other contact information will remain the same.
Harmon Research Group Inc., Anaheim, Calif., has completed construction of its call center in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Research company earnings/financial news
Confirmit, Oslo, Norway, announced financial results for third-quarter 2013. Confirmit doubled its mobile app responses over third-quarter 2012 to 5.2 million. Confirmit also achieved 130 percent growth in multi-year contracts for the year to date, with a 50-percent increase for the third quarter alone.
MARSC Limited, Surrey, U.K., reported 2013 revenues up over 20 percent compared to 2012.