Boston magazine really isn’t in a place the start pointing fingers at others. It was just a couple weeks ago they had Texas Monthly on their ass for copying their Power Issue cover down to the greyscale portrait, font color and element positioning. But now they’re furious over Jason Binn‘s upcoming Boston Commonwealth title, which Boston‘s parent Metrocorp is accusing of stealing its advertising database.
Binn’s Niche Media is already facing trouble from CommonWealth magazine, owned by Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, which claimed trademark infringment in a still-pending March lawsuit. But the new allegations are, for our pride and pomp, “so so so scandalous.”
The problems started when Boston mag’s advertisers began receiving direct mailings from Niche at addresses that weren’t public or otherwise used, and then contacted their Boston ad reps about it. Though it’s widely known how Niche goes about collecting advertiser and subscriber information: Buy paying huge sums for specificly tailored marketing databases. How else would they have pieced together their Aspen Peak launch party invite list?
Adding to the scandal is the fact that many of Boston‘s ad reps have jumped ship to Binn’s Boston Commonwealth, including the latter’s new publisher Glen Kelley. Could they have walked away with the proprietary info? Kelley says no: “How would we do that? … With the exception of giving me a frontal lobotomy.” He goes on to say (and reveal his utter ignorance): “The database is all on the computer. There’s no way [to take it], not that I know of.” Shall we send him a bundle of CD-Rs, or will you?