eBay agrees to pay $56M in newsletter-couple harassment case

One of the most bizarre episodes in e-commerce history has concluded: eBay and several former employees have agreed to pay $56 million to settle a 2021 civil suit brought by Ina and David Steiner, a married couple who co-author the e-commerce newsletter EcommerceBytes. The case traces back to 2019, when high-level eBay executives — angered by the newsletter’s occasional criticism of the company — orchestrated a horrific campaign to intimidate the couple into halting their coverage.

According to previously released court documents, eBay executives used sock-puppet social media accounts to harass the Steiners, sent them anonymous threatening letters, and mailed them bizarre and disturbing items, including live spiders and cockroaches, pornographic magazines, a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath, and a book about surviving the death of a spouse. A plan to affix a GPS tracking device to the couple’s car was attempted but never carried out, and executives also internally discussed sending a “Samoan gang” to the Steiners’ home.

Of the $56 million total, $46.15 million comes from eBay itself, according to the couple’s law office, with $2 million from former CEO Devin Wenig, $500,000 from former executive Wendy Jones, and $50,000 from former executive Steve Wymer. Additional funds are also going to various non-profits. Seven former eBay employees, including the company’s former security chief James Baugh, were criminally charged in 2022 and pled guilty; Baugh was sentenced to nearly five years in prison. Others indicted by the Department of Justice included David Harville, Brian Gilbert, Stephanie Popp, Stephanie Stockwell, Philip Cooke, and former eBay contractor Veronica Zea.

eBay said in a statement that the conduct was wrong and reprehensible and should never have happened, adding that it does not reflect the company’s culture and extending its apology to the Steiners. One of the couple’s attorneys, Christopher Murphy, said the case “was always about more than obtaining financial recovery” — the Steiners also wanted to protect journalists and publishers and deter future corporate misconduct.

Why it matters

The settlement closes one of the most extreme documented cases of executive-directed harassment against journalists in tech, and it establishes personal financial exposure for individual executives — not just their employer — when a corporate retaliation campaign is proven in court.