If you can’t connect the dots to how MDG got your client’s email address then you don’t really have a leg to stand on. It doesn’t even appear that you ever disclosed the name of your customer to MDG and even if you did, you don’t have magic dibs on them unless you put in place some kind of mutual non-solicitation agreement (which is illegal in some states because it’s anti-competitive). Solicitation emails go out from companies all the time.
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This isn’t a legal problem.
It’s not even an ethical problem unless they used info you gave them in confidence and you can’t connect those dots.
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BTW, and this is the last thing I will be posting on this thread, I DO truly appreciate the hard work that MDG has put into Meteor. They have been, and still are, way ahead of the curve on making web development easier. I respect that they need to make money to survive. I just don’t think this marketing campaign is healthy for the independent consultants / web developers in the community. There are a lot of challenges out there these days and having your trusted development platform contact your client shouldn’t be one of them. Thanks in advance to all the other responses that will likely come after this one.
With all due respect to the MDG team (Meteor has been my platform of choice–where appropriate of course–for the past couple years), I’m shocked at most of the responses to the OP I’ve seen here.
Even if you take the consultant aspect out of the question (a clearly valid concern in itself imho), I would still view this as spam. True, MDG likely had no knowledge of who actually built this app… which is all the more reason not to make assumptions and send spam.
Even in the hypothetical Google scenario, I would go so far as to consider that spam as swell. No, it wouldn’t make me stop using Google products, but I would consider it “spammy”.
If someone goes to something I’ve built, and runs BuiltWith, and finds I’ve used Laravel, or Wordpress, or name-your-framework/platform, I would be rather annoyed to receive a sales email asking me to use their PaaS because of my particular choice of open-source software.
I can only believe that we must not be using the word “spam” in a uniform way here. Of course “spam” originally refers to mass-emailings to recipients who have no prior connection to the product or service in question. Still, I would consider fair the broader use of the term “spam” or “spammy” to refer to any unsolicited sales email.
I would hope at the least and for their own sake and reputation, MDG would confine the use of these sorts of emails to those who have at least registered at meteor.com, and will in the future consider sticking to more appropriate marketing avenues.
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In general I would agree with your comment:
Except in the case where it is the org behind the tech running BuiltWith for their own open source tech stack. If I were to use Laravel to build a product (especially one that makes me or my client money) and all they really ask in return is to be able to send me a sales pitch for support, or hosting, or whatever, then that seems more than reasonable.
I would go so far as to say that not only should they be able to send it to me, but as long as the frequency isn’t spammy, then it would be bad manners not to give the email a quick read and consideration well.
They are trying to monetize a business whose namesake product is open source. If that doesn’t give them more than enough reputation points to spare I don’t know what does. Maybe I just don’t really understand the mentality that says polluting my inbox with a single (or even handful) of unsolicited emails is going too far even if I benefited from the thousands of hours of work you have put into your open source project.
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Whether Builtwith or Meteor telemetry the information is available and fair game. The day it becomes predatory to communicate unsolicited to a qualified prospect is… well, where is the line to be drawn?
However, this is somewhat amateur as it shows they haven’t fully qualified their leads into legitimate prospects (with a better developed funnel and retargeting/automation etc).
It’s quite the faux-pas in the sense of MDG-Developer relations.
Totally off sides - this should never happen… Period!
Many companies have switched to Galaxy due to poor experiences with other providers like Modulus due to their lack of reliability and support.
That would implied the developers made the poor decision and this work against the community who choose to use other hosting for many reasons. Without clearly explain, the customers will likely ask many questions if not choosing Galaxy will affected their online presence and uptime.
Disappointed. I just hope Apollo won’t inherit this institutional mess.
@codewords - I totally agree with you and I am even disappoint to see that no one from MDG has put any comment on this so far 
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Totally overblown issue.
First: How in the world was MDG supposed to know that the domain owner has a consultant?
Secondly: Did they sign a “No Compete” somewhere?
Thirdly: IS this even a “No Compete” issue? Because all they’re asking is to move the hosting part somewhere else.
Fourth: It was a single advertisement email. Get over yourself.
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Maybe MDG is trying to reach out to you, the developer? From the email sample you attached, it seems that the content is targeted at the developer, but they have no idea who exactly it is. Benefit of doubt?
I agree though, given the circumstance, you must have feeled betrayed.
The only thing would be great on this thread is clarity.
- How exactly MDG got client’s email(and domain).
I thought they don’t get any information unless you include tracking package. - How to potentially disable this behaviour.
Discussion over MDG actions is useless, all MDG could do is announce their intentions. MDG is a service provider after all, they need customers just as much, and you cannot intercept them from offering good(better) service.
I’m sure that with Apollo, we are going to be using any methods we can find to identify GraphQL apps based on publicly available data, and try to sell them stuff so that we can make money to pay the employees that build all of these cool open source tools in the first place. I wouldn’t call that an institutional mess.
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MDG could purchase data from site like wappalyzer. Invisible hands are everywhere.
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I thought “Many companies have switched to Galaxy due to poor experiences with other providers like Modulus due to their lack of reliability and support.” came across poorly.
Maybe “Many companies have switched to Galaxy due to its better experience given their specific requirements.” gives a better impression. For instance, easy for consultant to say “our requirements are such that Galaxy is not best option at this time.” Also, says “people switch because we’re better for them” not because “others are worse”.
Just saying: marketing where you have to talk down alternatives seems weak/lame. Feels too much like “we suck less than them” (2016 US election, anyone?)
Does MDG have an opt-in/out somewhere? Could this be set in an app and stuck in an HTML header for a robot to find? Automation. I’m sure MDG only wants to contact where it has high potential for return. And developer/app owner only wants to be contacted by someone offering real value (or, perhaps, no one). This is just information flow. If only there was a way we could manage information flow…
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Again, dude, could you reduce the drama a bit? You’re unhappy, we get it. But it was a single email.
Give it a rest.
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Is it modulus that doesn’t support meteor?
or meteor that doesn’t support modulus?
BUH BUH BUMMMMM
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Contacting someone with scraped information is fair play - however, bashing a competitor is not classy. MDG should take the higher ground in these situations.
Easy and honest: “We’ve noticed you are running a Meteor app. We created Meteor and built a hosting solution specifically for it. Would you like to see a demo?”
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