eBay agreed to pay $3 million in connection with a 2019 harassment campaign targeting a Massachusetts couple who had criticized the e-commerce site. He The US Department of Justice announced the maximum criminal sentence on Thursday and said the company committed six felonies.
Specifically, the Department of Justice charged eBay with two counts of harassment through interstate travel, two counts of harassment through electronic communications services, one count of witness tampering, and one count of obstruction of justice. The charges arise from an egregious harassment campaign carried out by a group of seven eBay employees, some of whom were company executives.
In 2019, employees came up with a plan to target Ina and David Steiner, a couple who published an e-commerce newsletter that covered eBay from a critical perspective. In addition to sending them online threats, employees visited the couple's home to conduct surveillance and sent them grotesque items, including a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath, live insects and a book about getting over the death of a spouse. eBay's former chief security officer James Baugh and the company's former global resilience director were sentenced to prison in 2022while the remaining five employees were also charged.
“eBay engaged in absolutely horrific criminal conduct,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy said in a statement. “The company employees and contractors involved in this campaign put victims through hell in a petrifying campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the eBay brand.”
As part of the deferred prosecution agreement, the Justice Department requires eBay to retain a corporate compliance monitor for three years and “make extensive improvements to its compliance program.” eBay responded to the agreement in a post on their websitewriting that it “takes responsibility for the misconduct of its former employees.”
“The company's conduct in 2019 was wrong and reprehensible,” eBay CEO Jamie Iannone said in a statement. “From the moment eBay first learned of the events of 2019, it cooperated fully and extensively with law enforcement authorities… eBay remains committed to maintaining high standards of conduct and ethics and doing things right with the Steiners.”
Update January 11 at 2:10 pm ET: Added a response from eBay.
