eBay settles cyberstalking charges for $3 million
eBay has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding an August 2019 harassment and intimidation campaign.
The e-commerce retailer has agreed to pay a $3 million criminal penalty for the campaign targeting a Massachusetts couple in retaliation for their online coverage of eBay, and for its obstruction of the investigation that followed.
eBay was charged criminally 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 and has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.
The $3 million figure is the statutory maximum fine for these six felony offenses. As part of the agreement, eBay will also be required to retain an independent corporate compliance monitor for a period of three years and to enhance its compliance program.
The fine and other steps eBay agreed to take are the result of actions seven former eBay employees took to target a married couple living in Natick, Mass. who posted negative commentary about eBay in an online blog they published.
Actions taken against the couple are said to have included sending them a Halloween mask of a bloody pig face, as well as a funeral wreath, a book on surviving the death of a spouse, and live cockroaches and spiders; sending pornography in the husband’s name to neighbors; and planning to break into their garage and placing a tracking device on their car.
In September 2022, James Baugh, former eBay senior director of safety & security, and David Harville, former eBay director of global resiliency, were sentenced to prison by a federal judge in Massachusetts for their roles in the harassment campaign.
“eBay engaged in absolutely horrific, criminal conduct,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy said in an official DOJ blog post. "The company’s employees and contractors involved in this campaign put the victims through pure hell, in a petrifying campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the eBay brand. Today’s criminal resolution with the company imposes the maximum fine that the law allows under the statutes, holding eBay accountable for a corporate culture that led to this unprecedented stalking campaign.”
In a blog post on its corporate site, eBay noted that the deferred prosecution agreement acknowledges that its cooperation included “proactively disclosing certain evidence of which the United States was previously unaware; providing information obtained through its internal investigation, which allowed the government to preserve and obtain evidence as part of its own independent investigation; making detailed factual presentations to the U.S. Attorney’s Office; voluntarily facilitating interviews of employees; and collecting and producing voluminous relevant documents to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.””
“The company’s conduct in 2019 was wrong and reprehensible,” said Jamie Iannone, CEO at eBay, in the company’s blog post. “From the moment eBay first learned of the 2019 events, eBay cooperated fully and extensively with law enforcement authorities. We continue to extend our deepest apologies to the Steiners for what they endured. Since these events occurred, new leaders have joined the company and eBay has strengthened its policies, procedures, controls and training.”