eBay reaches $56M settlement with e-commerce newsletter writers it terrorized in 2019
eBay has agreed to a $56 million settlement with a couple who were the targets of a severe harassment campaign by former company executives in 2019. The campaign involved threatening letters and disturbing items sent to the victims' home.
Why it matters
The case highlights the extreme consequences of corporate misconduct and the legal accountability of executives for criminal harassment.
One of the most bizarre episodes in e-commerce history has come to a close. eBay and several former eBay employees have agreed to pay $56 million to a newsletter-writing couple that was targeted by the company’s former executives in a horrific targeted harassment campaign that took place in 2019.
Ina and David Steiner, a married couple and the co-authors of EcommerceBytes , inspired the ire of high-level eBay executives after occasionally criticizing the company in their newsletter. In 2019, a plot was concocted to intimidate the couple into halting their negative coverage.
Executives used sock puppet social media accounts to harass the couple, while also sending them anonymous threatening letters and bizarre items in the mail — including live spiders and cockroaches, pornographic magazines, a bloody pig mask, a funereal wreath, and a book about surviving the death of a spouse.
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