So I take it the three million go to the state and not to the victims?
eBay to cough up $3M after cyber-stalking couple who dared criticize the souk
eBay will pay $3 million to settle criminal charges that its security team stalked and harassed a Massachusetts couple in retaliation for their website's critical coverage of the online tat bazaar. Under a deferred prosecution agreement [PDF], eBay admits responsibility for the actions of six of its former employees, and a …
COMMENTS
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Friday 12th January 2024 05:43 GMT Joe W
Re: “ the $3 million, which is the statutory maximum for the six felony offenses”
Nope, it was one offender - eBay - the others have been charged separately (from my understanding of reading the article). Also note that this was not the case that determines how much eBay has to cough up in damages to the Steiners, that one is still ongoing (last paragraph in the article, or thereabouts).
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Friday 12th January 2024 10:38 GMT Lurko
Well, we've seen how UK management get rewarded for malfeasance from the Horizon scandal - and of course, Adam Crozier on whose watch Horizon went wrong is living life high on the hog as chairman of BT plc. And nationally, such mis-use of the legal system continues, for example with the mis-use of the legal system to try and stifle public debate on noise issues caused by the rich and powerful using Farnborough airport:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/03/farnborough-airports-biggest-critic-silenced-as-expansion-plans-continue
And apart from that, the UK allows super-injunctions, that as a matter of course should not be allowable in any democratic society, but because they work for the rich and powerful continue to be used.
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Friday 12th January 2024 19:42 GMT PRR
There's decent corporate harassment, and then there is sick shit. ElReg should have re-run the pictures of the bloody pig mask (ugh), the fetal pig (yuck), and live cockroaches (gross and unhealthy). WTF??
While eBay has not been punished (yet?)($3m is nothing to eBay), the personal jail-time *may* deter other sick executives from acting on their perverted fantasies.
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Friday 12th January 2024 23:08 GMT Michael Wojcik
In their story on this, the NYT included some quotes from internal eBay communications that were revealed at trial. The "chief communications officer" at eBay seems to have been particularly horrible. From the article:
“Sometimes, you just need to make an example out of someone,” read a text that the chief communications officer sent to the senior vice president on May 31, 2019. “Justice,” the text continued. The chief communications officer then wrote, referring to Ms. Steiner: “We are too nice. She needs to be crushed.”
That's the sound of a school bully grown in years but not maturity, and now in a position of influence. I don't think that sort of person can be fixed. They're inherently broken.
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