Online auction platform eBay Inc. has agreed to a deal with federal prosecutors to pay a $3 million fine to settle criminal charges stemming from its employees’ harassment campaign of a blogger couple who had written critically of the company. The company reached the deal as part of a deferred prosecution agreement on multiple counts of stalking, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
The case stemmed from a 2019 campaign in which several members of eBay’s security team, including its senior director, began sending threatening items to the couple, Ina and David Steiner, the editor and publisher of eCommercebytes, a newsletter popular among online sellers. Among the anonymous items sent to the Steiners included a book on surviving the death of a spouse, a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig, a funeral wreath and live spiders, prosecutors said. The harassment campaign also included sending private Twitter messages and public tweets criticizing the newsletter’s content and threatening to visit the victims’ home in Massachusetts, according to court filings. Federal prosecutors say eBay security personnel also traveled to Massachusetts to surveil the Steiners’ home and install a GPS tracking device on their car. The harassment also included Cr …
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The case stemmed from a 2019 campaign in which several members of eBay’s security team, including its senior director, began sending threatening items to the couple, Ina and David Steiner, the editor and publisher of eCommercebytes, a newsletter popular among online sellers. Among the anonymous items sent to the Steiners included a book on surviving the death of a spouse, a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig, a funeral wreath and live spiders, prosecutors said. The harassment campaign also included sending private Twitter messages and public tweets criticizing the newsletter’s content and threatening to visit the victims’ home in Massachusetts, according to court filings. Federal prosecutors say eBay security personnel also traveled to Massachusetts to surveil the Steiners’ home and install a GPS tracking device on their car. The harassment also included Cr …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]