EBay Agrees To Pay Nearly $50M To Couple Sent Cockroaches, Bloody Pig Mask

BOSTON (AP) — eBay Inc.agreed to pay almost $50 million to a Massachusetts couple who said former employees of the company targeted them with threats and bizarre anonymous deliveries — including live insects, a funeral wreath and a bloody pig Halloween mask, according to settlement details released Tuesday.

The parties reached a tentative settlement in February as the case was headed to trial, but they were unable to finalize the agreement.The Steiners asked a federal judge in June to reopen the case, and a new settlement announced Tuesday resolves the litigation.Advertisement The agreement with David and Ina Steiner, founders of EcommerceBytes, a newsletter covering the e-commerce industry, includes an additional $7 million in charitable donations, including to organizations supporting First Amendment rights.

Attorney Christopher Murphy said the resolution sends “a warning that attempts by big business to suppress speech and the press will not be tolerated.”“This was not only an attack and campaign of harassment against two people; it was also an attack on free speech and freedom of the press,” said Murphy, of Massachusetts-based Scalli Murphy Law.The settlement contains no confidentiality provision, allowing the Steiners to discuss the case publicly.Murphy said his clients insisted on being able to speak openly about what happened to them.Advertisement The settlement resolves more than six years of criminal and civil proceedings stemming from the harassment campaign.

In their 2021 lawsuit filed in Boston federal court, the Steiners said that the company engaged in a conspiracy to “intimidate, threaten to kill, torture, terrorize, stalk and silence them” in order to “stifle their reporting on eBay.” The Natick residents, who report on the e-commerce industry in their newsletter, said they were subjected to cyberstalking, death threats and in-person surveillance by former eBay workers.The settlement also requires eBay to ...