NewzeBay and some former executives have agreed to pay a couple $56m (£42m) after a campaign of harassment in retaliation for their online criticism of the firm. In a statement on Tuesday, David and Ina Steiner said they and eBay had reached a settlement stemming from the 2019 harassment they faced from several of the company’s executives, as well as internal communications by eBay’s then-chief executive. A group of now-former company executives ultimately pleaded guilty to sending the couple a costume mask covered in pigs’ blood, a book on surviving the death of a spouse, among other threatening actions.
Other actions perpetrated against the Steiners included eBay executives sending them a funeral wreath and harassing messages on Twitter (the social media platform now known as X). Some even paid visits to the couple’s Massachusetts home in a bid to install a tracking device on their car. Seven former eBay executives pleaded guilty to the criminal charges between 2022 and 2024, according to the U.S.
An FBI agent involved in the investigation said in 2024 that the former executives’ actions were an “unprecedented, relentless, and over-the-top harassment campaign”. eBay was also criminally charged and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ, agreeing to pay a $3m fine. While eBay is paying the couple the bulk of the settlement, including $6m to “various non-profit organisations”, Wenig is personally paying $1m toward the settlement.
The same year, he sent eBay’s top communications executive a text message about Ina Steiner that said: “Take her down.” A representative of Wenig on Tuesday said earlier proceedings in the Steiners’ lawsuit explained that his text was referring to a public relations strategy to combat purported errors in Ina Steiner’s writing. Wenig added: “No one should ever have been subjected to what the Steiners endured in 2019, and I’m saddened by it, especially because it occurred during my time as CEO of eBay. The harassment was deliberately done in secret.” His contribution is set to go to an unnamed charity that is “dedicated to protecting First Amendment rights” and will be gifted in the name of Ina Steiner, according to the couple’s lawyers.
eBay and three former executives agreed to pay nearly $56 million in a settlement over a macabre campaign of cyberstalking and harassment that targeted two journalists in 2019. As we've previously written, the case involved deliveries of live cockroaches, a funeral wreath, a book about surviving the loss of a spouse, and a bloody pig mask to the home of a couple who run a news website. There were also harassing messages sent via email and Twitter, and an attempt to install a GPS tracking device on the victims' car.
Criminal charges resulted in guilty pleas and prison terms for former eBay employees. The victims were Ina and David Steiner of Natick, Massachusetts, who run the news website EcommerceBytes. "David and I officially settled the lawsuit we filed in 2021 against eBay and its former executives over the stalking and harassment campaign we endured in 2019 designed to stop our reporting," Ina Steiner wrote on EcommerceBytes yesterday.
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