eBay, Former Executives Settle Cyberstalking Case for $55.7 Million
eBay and several former executives have finalized a $55.7 million settlement with EcommerceBytes publishers Ina and David Steiner, bringing the Steiners’ civil case to an end more than six years after the 2019 cyberstalking campaign.
The agreement includes $48.7 million in compensation for the Steiners, with eBay paying $46.15 million, former CEO Devin Wenig contributing $2 million, former SVP of Global Operations Wendy Jones paying $500,000 and former communications chief Steve Wymer paying $50,000.
eBay will also provide $6 million to nonprofit organizations, while Wenig will contribute another $1 million to a charity dedicated to protecting First Amendment rights, with the contribution made in Ina Steiner’s name.
That donation is especially striking given how the scandal exposed a stark contrast between Wenig’s public posture on press freedom and private frustrations with media coverage from EcommerceBytes and others.
Wenig served as CEO of Thomson Reuters Markets before joining eBay and has publicly positioned himself as a defender of press freedom, even founding a charity supporting various organizations including the Prison Journalism Project.
At Recode’s 2016 Code Conference, Wenig was asked about the dispute between Gawker Media and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and warned against allowing powerful people to silence critical coverage, saying: "I side with a free media & a free press...we've got to be really careful that powerful voices don't knock down what I call divergent points of view."
Court records later alleged a very different response to unfavorable reporting.
According to FBI Special Agent Mark Wilson, after a Wall Street Journal article about eBay, Wenig told Wymer: “Fuck them. The Journal is next on the list after [Ina Steiner].”
Ironically, Wenig has now launched Symbolic.AI, an AI-based journalism platform which signed a deal with Wall Street Journal parent company News Corp earlier this year.
Nileena Sunil
According to a press release issued by the Steiners’ attorneys, eBay has agreed to release a “strongly-worded public statement” addressing the conduct of Wenig, Wymer and Jones, along with the company culture surrounding the events.
The settlement contains no confidentiality restrictions, allowing the Steiners to continue discussing the case and the evidence uncovered during years of litigation.
Separate settlements were also reached with the remaining former eBay employees named as defendants. Those terms were not disclosed, while the publicly announced $55.7 million settlement is significantly less than the $700 million in combined compensatory and punitive damages the Steiners had sought in the lawsuit.
The case had appeared settled once before, when the parties reached an agreement in principle just days before trial was scheduled to begin in March. Those negotiations later collapsed over disagreements about the written terms, prompting Judge Patti Saris to reopen the lawsuit in June and schedule a new trial for January 2027.
The settlement finally resolves the Steiners’ 2021 civil suit against eBay and the individuals involved in a campaign intended to intimidate the couple, interfere with their reporting and reveal the identity of unsuckEBAY, previously known as FidoMaster, the anonymous source and commenter who had also drawn the ire of top eBay executives.
Seven former eBay employees and contractors previously pleaded guilty to criminal charges. eBay separately admitted responsibility for six felony offenses under a 2024 deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice, paid a $3 million criminal fine and agreed to three years of enhanced compliance monitoring.
The settlement ends the civil case without resolving the broader governance questions raised by the scandal.
Previous Value Added Resource reporting has examined eBay’s oversight of the employees involved, executive sabbaticals during the harassment campaign, severance payments that were not clawed back and the continued presence of scandal-era directors in important board leadership roles.
Liz Morton
eBay added to those concerns when it rewrote key board committee oversight provisions immediately after the first settlement was announced in February.
The company and a recent Netflix documentary have also continued to frame the crimes largely around former C-suite executives, former security chief Jim Baugh and the employees working under him.
Liz Morton
The agreement delivers substantial compensation for the Steiners and requires public commitments from eBay and Wenig, but important questions about executive pressure, board oversight and the corporate culture surrounding the campaign remain unresolved.
Stay tuned for updates in this developing story, and remember: VAR+ subscribers get exclusive access to the Value Added Resource eBay cyberstalking case document archive!
