eBay and Former Executives Settle Blogger Cyberstalking Case for $56M

eBay and three former executives agreed to pay roughly $56 million to settle civil claims brought by David and Ina Steiner, the Massachusetts couple who publish the e-commerce newsletter EcommerceBytes [doc6, doc7]. The case concerns eBay's 2019 campaign of cyberstalking and harassment aimed at stopping the Steiners' critical coverage of the company. This was harassment of outside journalists, not an internal workplace dispute.

The settlement breaks down as $48.7 million in compensation, of which $46.15 million comes from eBay itself, $2 million from former chief executive Devin Wenig, $500,000 from former executive Wendy Jones, and $50,000 from former executive Steve Wymer . eBay additionally agreed to fund $6 million in charitable contributions and to issue a strongly worded statement about the conduct of the three former executives .

The underlying conduct was extreme. The Steiners received online threats and a series of deliveries to their home including live insects, a funeral wreath, a bloody pig mask, and a book about surviving the loss of a spouse; former employees surveilled the couple and attempted to fit a GPS tracker to their car . Several former eBay employees were criminally prosecuted and sentenced in the parallel federal case.

For EBAY the $56 million is immaterial against the company's earnings base, and the settlement removes the last major civil overhang from the episode after years of litigation and criminal proceedings. The governance question it leaves is narrower and more durable: the campaign was directed by senior executives, and the required public statement about their conduct is the part that follows the company's reputation rather than its P&L.

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