TECH - eBay Agrees To Pay $3M For Sending Live Cockroaches And Fetal Pig To Silent Critical Bloggers | Benzinga
eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) has agreed to pay a $3 million criminal penalty to settle charges of a harassment campaign against two bloggers who were critical of the e-commerce giant, involving threatening messages, disturbing deliveries, and surveillance.
What Happened: eBay admitted to the charges and the facts presented by federal prosecutors in a deferred prosecution agreement, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The company was charged with stalking through interstate travel and electronic communications services, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice.
The harassment campaign, which was aimed at silencing the bloggers’ reporting and protecting the eBay brand, was led by former eBay senior director of safety and security James Baugh and a team of other staffers and contractors in 2019. The bloggers, David and Ina Steiner, run an e-commerce blog called EcommerceBytes.
The harassment campaign began with threatening messages and tweets and quickly escalated. The perpetrators, including Baugh, sent the bloggers a bloody pig mask, live roaches, and a fetal pig. Fake Craigslist posts were created, inviting people to have s*x with the bloggers in their homes.
When questioned by ...