In a blog post on MyStoreSpace.com Alex E writes of a confrontation he allegedly had at an eBay Live closing party with eBay’s Chief Marketing Officer, Gary Briggs and some security folks over suspicions of his ties to Google.
It probably did not help that Alex was wearing a black Google polo shirt especially since the recent bad blood between eBay and Google. Alex describes his alleged creepy encounter with eBay on his blog post.
“I was suddenly tapped on the shoulder by a man who introduced himself as Gary Briggs. I didn’t catch his title due to the loud music, but a Google search later revealed it to be “Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for eBay North America.” He approached me in a manner reminiscent of someone trying to start a bar fight, with another colleague who remained anonymous.”
‘Are you with Google?’ he asked. I said ‘No,’ and showed him my badge with mystorespace.com as the company name. ‘You’re not promoting Google Checkout, are you?’ he demanded. I was shocked by this intrusion, accustomed to software conventions and trade shows where companies are receptive of one-another’s technology. I replied (somewhat smartly) that no, since I didn’t work for Google, why would I be promoting Google Checkout, ‘but what if I was?’ He said ‘I wouldn’t appreciate it, that’s all…. Have a good time gentlemen,’ and walked away.”
That was not the end of the confrontation. Alex writes, “But just ten minutes later I was pulled aside again, this time by at least three or four physically intimidating security personnel. My co-founder and I were escorted away from the crowd, where we were once again met by Gary Briggs, who repeated the same questions as before.”
Finally the encounter ended,” I don’t remember much from the rest of the interrogation since I was beginning to feel insulted and angry for being intimidated, but I eventually ended it by saying that I didn’t want to talk to them any more and that we’ll just concede and leave. Gary Briggs grinned and waved ‘buh-bye.’ Two of the security staff followed my co-founder and I through the quarter-mile exhibition floor, out the doors, down the corridor, and all the way to the building exit.”
In an interview with murdok on the issue I asked if eBay thought he was a Google spy? Alex said, “Some of them including Gary Briggs suspected that, it seems. However most of the eBay employees I encountered were friendly.”
He said he would attend other eBay events if they let him in and hoped that next time he would have a shirt that promotes his online business instead of a Google polo. On whether he would add PayPal to his site he said he would if enough people asked. Currently he uses Google Checkout.
eBay did not respond for a request to comment on the incident.
