Google bans Glass from its own shareholder meeting

Google shareholders and other individuals were in for a surprise when they arrived at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Thursday. Google, ironically, banned attendees from wearing the company’s own wearable computing device at the meeting. The company forbade people from using electronic devices such as smartphones, cameras and recording devices. The restriction infuriated the nonprofit watchdog organization Consumer Watchdog, which called out Google executives as hypocrites.

[More from BGR: Microsoft’s Xbox One policies are driving me into the arms of the PS4]

“Google has unleashed one of the most privacy invasive devices ever,” John M. Simpson, privacy project director at Consumer Watchdog, said in a press release. “Google Glass aids and abets people who want to invade our privacy by videoing or photographing us surreptitiously, but when it comes to their own privacy Google executives jealously guard it.”

[More from BGR: New images of leaked iPhone 5S parts show redesigned home button and more]

Simpson is a stern opponent of Google Glass and recently called for Google to give consumers a way to remove videos or photos from the company’s database that were taken by Glass users. The group blasted Google for its “long record of making everyone else’s information public, but insisting on secrecy about its operations.”

Google Glass isn’t expected to be available to consumers until early next year, however the device has already seen its fair share of criticism. Some early reviews have called Glass “creepy,” invasive and likely to fail.

This article was originally published on BGR.com