Last month a Google Glass user in New York was told to take off the wearable tech in the city’s Feast restaurant as it had raised privacy concerns among her fellow guests. She refused, and she was therefore kicked out.
But now the Glass wearer, founder of the ‘Google Glass Explorers of NYC’ Katy Kasmai, is fighting back against Feast alongside her fellow Google Glass advocates, swarming the restaurant with a flood of one-star reviews.
Kasmai made the following post on Google+, where she has over 3,000 followers, saying: “For the first time ever this place, Feast, in #NYC just asked that I remove Google Glass because customers have complained of privacy concerns in the past. Never has happened to me before in one year I’ve had Glass.”
After the post, she and her followers decided to completely tarnish the restaurant’s online reputation with a barrage of reviews featuring the lowest rating possible. Speaking to EV Grieve, the restaurant’s manager said: “When the first thing that comes up when you search Feast in Google is a 3.1 [rating], it can really hurt a restaurant like us.
It’s malicious and technically a violation of Google’s own terms.
“Then you have 13 people, which is about half the total reviews, who have never been to our restaurant let alone live in NYC, leave you one-star reviews… It’s malicious and technically a violation of Google’s own terms for leaving reviews.”
But Kasmai, who predictably didn’t see her actions as being over the top, took to Twitter to say that Feast had “discriminated against” her, to which Feast replied: “at the end of the day, it’s not like we did this bc we don’t like u or glass. It’s a direct result of other guest complaints [sic].”
Kasmai and Feast eventually seemed to resolve their conflict, with Kasmai saying that she’d stop by the restaurant to show employees how Google Glass works so they can explain the tech to “customers who have concerns”.
