In 2019, Ina and David Steiner ran a popular blog called eCommercebytes that covered the online selling world. Their reporting sometimes took aim at eBay, and that apparently did not sit well with some people inside the company.
Senior eBay employees launched a coordinated campaign of threats and stalking directed at the couple. They sent live insects to the Steiners' home. They delivered a funeral wreath.
They left a bloody pig mask at their door. They even tried to track them with a GPS device.
The campaign was "designed to stop their reporting," according to attorneys for the Steiners. According to federal prosecutors, a 2024 criminal complaint uncovered messages among top eBay executives discussing Ina Steiner, with one note from former CEO Devin Wenig saying, "take her down."
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eCommerceBytes, the blog run by Ina and David Steiner, had long been a thorn in eBay's side, regularly publishing critical analysis of the company's seller policies. The couple also faced online harassment and attempts to damage their professional reputation, according to court documents.
The 2019 intimidation campaign extended beyond physical threats to include online harassment and attempts to damage the couple's professional reputation. The civil settlement addresses claims of emotional distress and invasion of privacy, while criminal convictions hold individual employees directly accountable.
The Steiners have described the experience as profoundly traumatic, forcing them to alter their daily lives out of fear for their safety. Their ordeal has since become a high-profile example of corporate retaliation against independent journalists, prompting renewed calls for stronger legal protections for online media.
The total settlement comes to nearly $56 million. EBay itself is writing a check for $46.1 million. Former CEO Devin Wenig agreed to pay $2 million.
EBay's former senior vice president of operations is paying $500,000, and the former chief communications officer is paying $50,000. Additionally, both eBay and Wenig committed to making donations to several nonprofit organizations.
On the criminal side, seven ex-eBay employees entered guilty pleas for their roles in the harassment scheme. James Baugh, previously eBay's senior director of safety and security, received a prison term of nearly five years. Wenig was not cited in the criminal proceedings. In a statement to the Boston Globe, he said the harassment was "deliberately done in secret and without my knowledge."
Lawyers representing the Steiners stated that further, separate settlements had been secured with every other employee listed in the civil complaint.
As part of the agreement's conditions, eBay issued a statement, saying in a release that the settlement "fulfills our efforts to make things right" with the Steiners. "As we have long stated, what the Steiners were subjected to by former eBay employees in 2019 was wrong, reprehensible and should never have happened," the company said. "We condemn, in the strongest terms possible, the employees who perpetrated and pled guilty to criminal charges for the misconduct against Ina and David Steiner."
The company described the conduct as "not representative of eBay's culture" and noted that after the incident, it has brought in new leadership and reinforced its policies, procedures, controls, and training.
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