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eBay hit with $3M fine, admits to “terrorizing innocent people” (arstechnica.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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eBay hit with $3M fine, admits to “terrorizing innocent people”::eBay must pay maximum fine for putting Massachusetts couple “through pure hell.”

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[–] 60 points 2 years ago (3 children)

eBay’s revenue in the last financial year was over $10 billion, I’m sure that $3 million fine will make sure they never terrorise innocents again.

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  • [–] 65 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    From another article

    All seven who participated in the harassment have been convicted. Baugh was sentenced to 57 months in prison in September 2022.

    It was a small group of employees targeting one couple, and it looks like most of them will be going to prison.

    While I agree that the $3m is chump change for eBay, the victims deserve the settlement, and some justice has been served.

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  • [–] 33 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It was ”a small group of employees” instigated by the CEO and CCO, who were never charged.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    "Instigated" implying conspiracy that was not found to exist, or they would have been charged.

    eBay's board found the same: https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-inc-issues-statement-regarding-indictments-of-previously-terminated-employees/

    They're assholes, but there are no laws against being an asshole.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    “Instigated” in the age-old “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest” sense.

    They weren’t charged, only because laws have always been understood to afford a loophole of plausible deniability to those in power.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's great to hear that the people responsible will actually do time for what they did

    Usually when you hear about people at a corporation doing some shitty stuff all you hear about is fines

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Probably because they’re employees, not management.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Honest question, this was a criminal proceeding, right?

    Couldn't they now go after individuals through civil action, where burden of proof is lower, and damage claims can be pretty significant?

    I don't really know, I suspect finding a legal team willing to go after ebay senior management may be challenging to find?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago*

    If you have civil and criminal causes of action, it’s often expedient to pursue the criminal one first, as it’s admissible as evidence in the civil case—the reverse isn’t usually true. I would be very surprised if there were not a settlement very soon, which unfortunately we will probably never hear about.

    With the facts of the criminal case, I don’t think they would have any difficulty at all getting a legal team to go after EBay. It’s a risk/reward thing for them and the pockets they’d be going after are very deep.

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