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A civil lawsuit against eBay, brought by the founders of a Massachusetts-based news site covering e-commerce, has been settled. The crux of the matter: The company and its former executives must own up to—and pay for—Perhaps the most disturbing campaign of harassment Ever the leading tech giant against its critics.
In 2020, six former eBay employees and one contractor were charged with participating in a horrific campaign — involving defamation, threats and delivery of live pests — against David and Ina Steiner, the husband-and-wife founders of the Massachusetts-based news site EcommerceBytes. The Steiners wrote about eBay regularly, and often not in a flattering light. In 2021, the couple filed a civil suit; eBay He later agreed to pay a $3 million criminal fine To the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
Now the civil lawsuit case has reached final settlement. The Steiners will receive more than $46.15 million from eBay, $2 million from former CEO Devin Wenig, $500,000 from former eBay executive Wendy Jones, and $50,000 from former eBay executive Steve Weimer.
EBay is also giving $6 million to charities, with an additional $1 million from Wenig going to a nonprofit that protects First Amendment rights. The company is required to issue a strongly worded statement condemning the actions of the former employees involved.
Notably, the settlement does not contain any confidentiality clause, meaning the Steiners can continue to speak publicly about the case.
“From day one, it was a deal breaker,” says Chris Murphy, the Steiners’ family attorney at the personal injury firm Scalli Murphy Law in Everett, Massachusetts. “As journalists, and as victims, the Steiners have been very clear that they want everyone to see and understand what eBay did to them. From day one, they have been willing to take them to court for it.”
“It’s a bit of a relief that we have some closure,” David Steiner said in an interview with WIRED. “But I think it’s going to take some time to really see what this means in the larger context of the settlement, versus going to trial. We’ve been really adamant that this type of behavior by a Fortune 500 company has not gone unchecked.”
Ina Steiner confirmed that the couple ultimately filed a civil suit because they wanted to better understand what kind of culture precipitated this harassment campaign — and that by filing the civil suit, they gained access to 68,000 documents they would not have been able to see otherwise. “We were often in the dark during the federal investigation, and were told very little as victims,” she said.
eBay spokespeople pointed to WIRED’s statement Published onlinein which the company offered its “deepest apologies” to the Steiners, condemned the employees who “committed and pleaded guilty to criminal charges of misconduct against Ina and David Steiner,” and acknowledged “the unprofessional tone in internal communications demonstrated, in varying degrees and numbers, by Mr. Wenig, Mr. Weimer, and Ms. Jones.” The company stressed that new leadership is now in charge, and that the events that occurred in 2019 “do not represent the culture of eBay or the thousands of employees around the world today.”
According to initial criminal complaints, the harassment campaign led by eBay executives and contractors unfolded over the course of two months in the summer of 2019. It began with anonymous direct messages on Twitter to the Steiners, then quickly escalated to deliveries to the couple’s home. These deliveries included a bloody pig mask, pornographic material, a package of live fly and spider larvae, and another package containing live cockroaches. Other deliveries were about death, including a copy of a book about the husband’s grief and a funeral wreath from a local florist. All the while, the anonymous Twitter account continued to send harassing messages. As the text messages would later reveal in court documents, those direct messages and deliveries were fabricated and sent by the defendants.
