eBay will pay $3 million to settle criminal charges that its security team stalked and harassed a Massachusetts couple in retaliation for their website's critical coverage of the online tat bazaar.
Under the agreement [PDF], eBay admits responsibility for the actions of six of its former employees, and a contractor, all of whom previously pleaded guilty to physically and electronically harassing Ina and David Steiner.
Ina and David Steiner in 1999 co-founded EcommerceBytes, a website and newsletter that reports on and scrutinizes ecommerce companies, including eBay.
Some bosses at the web auction house didn't like the coverage, and decided to make the Steiners' lives a misery to pressure them into silence.
The US Justice Department subsequently charged eBay with two counts of stalking through interstate travel, two counts of stalking through electronic communications services, one count of witness tampering, and one count of obstruction of justice.
In addition to paying the $3 million, which is the statutory maximum for the six felony offenses, eBay will also be required to retain an independent corporate compliance monitor for three years and to make improvements to its compliance program.
The Steiners are privately suing eBay for damages, a lawsuit that is ongoing still.
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Beginning in August 2019, Jim Baugh, eBay's now-former senior director of safety and security, and six colleagues - David Harville, Philip Cooke, Brian Gilbert, Stephanie Popp, Veronica Zea, and Stephanie Stockwell - targeted the Steiners for their eBay coverage.
These unwanted and disturbing items included a book on surviving the death of a spouse, porno subscriptions, a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig, a funeral wreath, and live spiders and cockroaches.
The ex-eBay staffers also traveled to Natick, Massachusetts, to surveil their victims and installed a GPS tracking device on their car, and posted an ad on Craigslist seeking sexual partners and providing the Steiners' home address.
After the Steiners called the cops, Baugh made false statements to the Natick Police Department and internal investigators.
He and his team also deleted digital evidence related to the cyberstalking campaign and falsified records.
Six of the crew have been sentenced for their roles in the crimes.
In September, Baugh received nearly five years in prison and Harville was sentenced to two years behind bars.
Popp got a year in the cooler, Cooke got 18 months in prison and 12 months of home confinement, while both Stockwell and Zea were each sentenced to one year of home confinement.
This Cyber News was published on go.theregister.com. Publication date: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 22:13:04 +0000