Aren't they scam?

I can't say I've had any experience, but at glance I don't see anything that screams 'Scam!' There are plenty of articles that you can get for free to feel them out for a while. And, in a business like ours (Internet marketing) the yearly price they are charging is really low if indeed you get access to quality data (white papers, etc.). That stuff is pretty invaluable if you're in this business. So I guess it all depends on what you do and why you would need such information. For example, we pay quite a bit of money to Marketing Sherpa. It helps us to see the industry as a whole and how businesses are spending their marketing money. This helps us to create content for our online readers (blog posts), enhance our services to fit the needs of businesses in our market (like whether they are more proned to spending money in SEO vs. PPC, and how much), etc. We pay WAY more than $297 a year, and it's worth every penny. I think I'll take a closer look at Marketing Profs though, just to see what they have.