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A lawsuit against eBay, filed by the founders of a Massachusetts-based news site that covers real estate, has been settled. The bottom line: The company and former executives must own—and pay—perhaps the most challenging campaign it was led by a major technology company against its critics.
Back in 2020, six former eBay employees and one contractor were accused of participating in a dangerous, dangerous, threatening and life-threatening campaign against David and Ina Steiner, founders of the Massachusetts news website EcommerceBytes. The Steiners wrote about eBay on a regular basis, often not so much. In 2021, the couple filed a lawsuit; eBay he later agreed to pay a $3 million criminal penalty to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
Now the civil case is over. The Steiners have received more than $46.15 million from eBay, $2 million from former eBay CEO Devin Wenig, $500,000 from former eBay CEO Wendy Jones, and $50,000 from former eBay CEO Steve Wymer.
EBay is also donating $6 million to charity, with $1 million from Wenig going to a nonprofit that protects First Amendment rights. The company needs to issue a strong statement condemning the actions of its former employees.
Of course, the settlement is not confidential, which means the Steiners can continue to talk about the case.
“From day one, he was a mess,” says Chris Murphy, the Steiners’ attorney at the personal injury firm Scalli Murphy Law in Everett, Massachusetts. “As journalists, and as victims, the Steiners were clear that they wanted everyone to see and understand what eBay did to them. And from day one, they were ready to be held accountable.”
“It’s a relief in a way that we have the finale,” David Steiner said in an interview with WIRED. “But I think it’s going to take some time to figure out what this means for the larger settlement and litigation issue. We were convinced that this kind of behavior at a Fortune 500 company was not well managed.”
Ina Steiner emphasized that in the end the two cooperated with the government because they wanted to better understand the culture that led to this campaign of torture – and that in presenting their case, they found 68,000 documents that they would not have seen. “Most of the time we were in the dark within the government investigation, and we were told very little as victims,” he said.
eBay spokespeople referred WIRED for comment published onlinewhen the company issued a “profound apology” to the Steiners, it criticized the employees who “committed and accepted criminal charges for the bad behavior of Ina and David Steiner,” and acknowledged “the inconsistent statements and internal communications that were expressed, to varying degrees and numbers, by Mr. Wenig, Mr. Wymer.”, and Ms Jones. The company confirmed that the new leadership is a guide and that what happened in 2019 “does not represent the culture of eBay or the thousands of employees around the world today.”
According to the first complaint of the criminal, the harassment that was led by eBay officials and contractors took place for two months in the summer of 2019. It started with unknown people, threatening Twitter DMs to the Steiners, then quickly grew to bring it to the family’s home. The offerings included a bloody pig’s mask, pornography, a package of live fly larvae and spiders, and another package of live cockroaches. Other offerings had a death theme, including a spousal grieving book and a funeral wreath from a local florist. Overall, the anonymous Twitter account continued to post abusive messages. As the text messages later revealed in court documents, the DMs and offers were made and sent by the accused.
