eBay pays $3m high quality in blogger harassment case

eBay has agreed to pay a $3m (£2.36m) high quality to resolve harassment expenses in opposition to bloggers essential of the corporate.

Executives at eBay despatched stay spiders and cockroaches to Ina and David Steiner, based on court docket papers.

The couple have been focused for producing a e-newsletter the staff disliked, prosecutors mentioned.

The filings mentioned the couple had been left “emotionally, psychologically, and physically” terrorised.

The US Attorney’s Office within the District of Massachusetts mentioned Jim Baugh, eBay’s former senior director of security and safety, had focused the couple for producing EcommerceBytes, a e-newsletter that the corporate’s executives have been sad with.

Baugh and 6 associates led a marketing campaign to intimidate the Steiners, the court docket papers say.

The acts of intimidation included sending stay bugs, a foetal pig and a funeral wreath to the Steiners’ house in Natick, Massachusetts.

Baugh and his associates additionally put in a GPS monitoring gadget on the couple’s automobile and created posts on the web site Craigslist inviting sexual encounters at their house, based on the filings.

The staff in query have been fired by eBay shortly after the incident.

In 2021, worker Philip Cooke was sentenced to 18 months in jail. The following yr, Baugh was sentenced to just about 5 years.

Baugh’s legal professionals mentioned he confronted stress from former eBay CEO Devin Wenig to rein within the Steiners over their protection of the corporate.

Mr Wenig, who stepped down in 2019, has not been charged within the case and denies information of the harassment marketing campaign.

“eBay engaged in absolutely horrific, criminal conduct,” performing Massachusetts US Attorney Josh Levy advised the AP information company by electronic mail.

“The company’s employees and contractors involved in this campaign put the victims through pure hell, in a petrifying campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the eBay brand.”