eBay and three former executives will pay $55.7 million as part of a settlement with a Massachusetts couple targeted with a bizarre harassment and cyberstalking campaign in 2019, as reported earlier by CNBC. The settlement will resolve a lengthy legal saga that revealed how eBay’s former executives sent live insects, a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath, and other strange items to David and Ina Steiner over their newsletter’s coverage of eBay.
The Steiners, who operate the EcommerceBytes newsletter, sued eBay and its former executives — including ex-CEO Devin Wenig — in 2021. The lawsuit accused the company and its executives of launching a coordinated effort to “intimidate, threaten to kill, torture, terrorize, stalk and silence” the Steiners in an attempt to “stifle” their eBay-related reporting.
“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,” eBay says in a statement on its website. “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 $55.7 million settlement will include $46.15 million from eBay, $2 million from Wenig, $500,000 from former global operations SVP Wendy Jones, and $50,000 from former chief communications officer Steve Wymer. eBay will also donate $6 million to nonprofit organizations.