eBay’s harassment case ends with a $56M payout
The settlement brings a corporate-security scandal back into view: the people tasked with protection were convicted of targeting critics.
A Financial Times report links eBay’s 2019 harassment campaign to a $56 million payout. HN readers returned to the uncomfortable governance question: how did a security operation gain enough internal permission to pursue a couple who criticized the company?
The bill for treating criticism as a threat
The Financial Times report revisits the eBay harassment campaign and its $56 million payout. The case concerned company security employees who targeted Ina and David Steiner after their coverage of eBay.
The thread looks past the individual sentences
The HN discussion noted the criminal sentences already imposed on former members of eBay’s security organization. Its more useful question was whether this could have been an isolated impulse. Governance controls exist precisely because a corporate response to criticism can become dangerous long before it appears on a legal invoice.
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EU age checks could leave desktop Linux holding a phone
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