eBay and ex-executives pay $56mn to settle EcommerceBytes harassment case

eBay and several former executives will pay $56mn to settle a harassment campaign against Ina and David Steiner, publishers of the ecommerce blog EcommerceBytes — closing a seven-year legal fight, the Financial Times reported on August 2.

Packages, threats and 'crush this lady'

The harassment began in August 2019 in the Boston suburbs, with a box of live cockroaches, a bloody Halloween pig's-head mask and a funeral wreath delivered to the couple's door. Police traced the campaign to eBay's headquarters in San Jose, California, where senior executives had been incensed by the Steiners' reporting.

Court documents record an executive matching the description of Wendy Jones, then eBay's global operations chief, calling Ina a "cow". Steven Wymer, then chief communications officer, later wrote to CEO Devin Wenig after EcommerceBytes reported on his compensation: "We are going to crush this lady." Seven members of eBay's security team followed David from California to Massachusetts and posted the couple's home address online, prosecutors say.

From seller blog to David and Goliath

The Steiners found eBay in 1999, when David sold old camera gear, and built EcommerceBytes into a resource for small sellers as the company courted large retailers. In 2019 Ina reported that Wenig had commissioned a "lavish" replica of a New York tavern at headquarters as profits declined. "That touched a nerve," she said.

The settlement

The Department of Justice called eBay's conduct "absolutely horrific" and aimed at "silencing their reporting". eBay pleaded guilty to criminal charges in 2023 and paid a $3mn penalty; the seven security staff were sentenced to prison, home confinement. Wenig pays $2mn, Jones $500,000 and Wymer $50,000 under the settlement, the couple's lawyers said. eBay called the harassment "wrong, reprehensible and should never have happened"; Wenig said it was "done in secret and without my knowledge".

Vincent Joralemon of UC Berkeley Law called the civil penalty unprecedented "on an order of magnitude". Ina Steiner said the relief of learning who was behind it lasted "about 30 seconds". "We continue to have nightmares, insomnia, hypervigilance," she said.