eBay hit with $3M fine, admits to “terrorizing innocent people”

Enlarge (credit: picture alliance / Contributor | picture alliance)

eBay has agreed to pay $3 million—the maximum criminal penalty possible—after employees harassed, intimidated, and stalked a Massachusetts couple in retaliation for their critical reporting of the online marketplace in 2019.

“Today’s settlement holds eBay criminally and financially responsible for emotionally, psychologically, and physically terrorizing the publishers of an online newsletter out of fear that bad publicity would adversely impact their Fortune 500 company," Jodi Cohen, the special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Boston Division, said in a Justice Department press release Thursday.

eBay's harassment campaign against the couple, David and Ina Steiner, stretched for 18 days in August 2019 and was led by the company's former senior director of safety and security, Jim Baugh. It started when then-CEO Devin Wenig and then-chief communications officer Steven Wymer decided to "take down" the Steiners after growing frustrated with their coverage of eBay in a newsletter called EcommerceBytes.