The eBay harassment settlement reached in a civil case brought by David and Ina Steiner will require eBay and former executives to pay more than $55.7 million, according to WIRED. The Steiners, a married couple in Natick, Massachusetts, founded EcommerceBytes, a news site that covered e-commerce and regularly scrutinized eBay.
The settlement ends civil litigation the Steiners filed in 2021 after federal prosecutors charged six former eBay employees and one contractor in 2020 over a harassment campaign against them. eBay separately agreed to pay a $3 million criminal penalty to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, the Justice Department announced previously.
Under the civil settlement reported by WIRED, the Steiners will receive more than $46.15 million from eBay. Wenig will pay $2 million, former eBay executive Wendy Jones will pay $500,000, and former eBay executive Steve Wymer will pay $50,000. eBay will also donate $6 million to charity, while Wenig will give $1 million to a nonprofit focused on First Amendment rights.
The agreement also requires eBay to publish a statement condemning the conduct of the former employees involved. The settlement does not include a confidentiality clause, meaning the Steiners may continue discussing the case publicly.
What happened in the eBay harassment case?
According to the initial criminal complaints, the campaign took place over two months in the summer of 2019 and began with anonymous threatening direct messages on Twitter. Prosecutors said it then moved offline, with packages sent to the Steiners’ home that included a bloody pig mask, pornography, fly larvae, live spiders and live cockroaches.
Other deliveries invoked death, according to the complaints, including a funeral wreath and a book about grieving a spouse. Court documents later cited text messages showing that defendants planned and sent the messages and deliveries, WIRED reported.
The harassment also included physical surveillance, according to the criminal complaints. eBay workers followed the couple in a rented Dodge Caravan, and classified ads were posted on Craigslist directing strangers to the Steiners’ home for a swinger party, a threesome, a block sale and an estate sale. An emergency plumber was also sent to the address. After the Steiners contacted Natick police, who alerted federal authorities, the people behind the campaign tried to cover their tracks, according to the complaints.
Wenig has said he did not know about the specific acts taken by the group, WIRED reported. He allegedly gave the initial instruction to “take her down,” referring to Ina Steiner, to Wymer, who had served as eBay’s chief communications officer.
What eBay said about the settlement
In a statement, eBay apologized to the Steiners and condemned the employees who it said perpetrated the misconduct and pleaded guilty to criminal charges. The company also acknowledged what it called an unprofessional tone in internal communications by Wenig, Wymer and Jones, to varying degrees.
eBay said new leadership now runs the company and said the 2019 events do not represent its current culture or employees worldwide. That is the corporate version of accountability: say the right thing, point to the org chart, and hope the rot is treated as a personnel problem.
Chris Murphy, an attorney for the Steiners at Scalli Murphy Law in Everett, Massachusetts, told WIRED that the absence of a confidentiality provision was essential to his clients because they wanted the public to understand what eBay had done to them. David Steiner told WIRED the settlement brings some finality, while Ina Steiner said the civil case gave the couple access to 68,000 documents they had not seen during the federal investigation.
Murphy also told WIRED that the case may matter beyond eBay because of punitive damages. He said Massachusetts typically does not allow punitive damages in standard personal injury or civil harassment cases, but the Steiners’ lawyers argued that California law should apply because eBay is domiciled there. Murphy said he believes it is the first time that argument has succeeded in this type of Massachusetts case.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
