After five years of court battles, the Natick couple who exposed eBay‘s harassment and stalking campaign against them have reached a settlement. Ina and David Steiner will receive nearly $50 million, with an additional $7 million donated to charities. But the emotional scars remain, they say, and now they are turning their ordeal into a push for stronger legal protections for journalists.
It started in 2019, after eBay’s then-CEO Devin Wenig complained about coverage on the Steiners’ website, Ecommercebytes. What followed was a campaign of terror: threatening messages, live spiders, a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath, and even an attempt to attach a tracking device to their car. Seven people who worked at eBay faced criminal charges. The Steiners’ civil lawsuit was filed in 2021.
“When we started this, we were just fighting for our lives and our livelihood,” David Steiner said in an interview with the Globe. “And then as this case starts to reveal itself, you see that there are bigger issues at stake . . . so there is absolutely the sense of the greater responsibility for causes related to what we went through.”
The settlement, announced July 27, includes $46.15 million from eBay, $2 million from Wenig, and $550,000 from two other former executives. In an unusual twist, there is no confidentiality clause. “It’s too early to tell if we have closure,” Steiner said. “Just the fact that we’re still trying to recall certain instances in this case, means that it still haunts us. . . . It’s still very difficult to sleep.”
Ina Steiner echoed that unease. “If I learned anything over the past seven years, it is not to trust anything,” she said. “It’s still taking me time to process the fact that this is over.”
The couple’s mission, stated back in 2021, was to ensure this never happens to anyone else. “And for that, I think, mission accomplished,” Ina said on Monday. They are now entering “a phase of healing,” satisfied that their story has been widely told, including through a 2024 documentary on Amazon Prime called “Whatever It Takes.” “The bottom line is with the documentary, with the coverage that this is getting this week, that this can be a deterrent,” she said.
Their legal fight also highlighted gaps in Massachusetts law. Two years ago, eBay lawyers tried to force the Steiners to reveal confidential sources. More than 40 states have shield laws protecting journalists, but Massachusetts does not. Last month, the state Senate added a reporter shield law provision to a public records bill. “We absolutely want to advocate for that,” David Steiner said. Ina noted the chilling effect: potential sources began to fear tipping off the couple. “And that Massachusetts, of all the states in America, should be last when it comes to this is incredible to me.”
Massachusetts also lacks punitive damages in its antistalking statutes, unlike California. US Judge Patti Saris ruled in 2024 that the Steiners could rely on California’s punitive damages provision, but eBay had planned to appeal. Nearly all of the $500 million they sought depended on that ruling. “The civil stalking laws in Massachusetts, I don’t believe are strong enough,” David said. “We want to see some sort of financial or economic obligation to the victim, because what better to keep this from happening again?”
The Steiners had hoped to take the case to trial, but they realized much of the 68,000 documents uncovered would be inadmissible due to eBay’s objections. “If we had gone to trial, I think a fraction of the discovery — and we’ve seen 68,000 documents, we can’t unsee those documents — many of them would not have been allowed,” Steiner said.
Wenig has maintained he did not know about the campaign, and an outside law firm found his “tone was improper and unacceptable” but no evidence he directed the criminal acts. The documents revealed how corporate security departments were expanding, tracking critical customers. The ringleader, Jim Baugh, was a former CIA operative whose history was barred from the case by the Justice Department.
US Judge William Young was the first to publicly link the harassment to corporate power. In a 2022 sentencing, Young called it one of the most important cases he had seen in 44 years, warning that “great aggregations of economic power” are “sometimes abused” and “those who abuse it ought to be brought to account.” David Steiner was moved to tears. “He finally gave voice to that and it helped us keep going,” he recalled. “Ina and I have talked about that moment many times, how important Judge Young was to the way we proceeded.”
The Steiners hope their unusual settlement, with no nondisclosure clause, will serve as a blueprint. “People in similar types of cases could cite this,” Steiner said. “Out of everything that’s in that settlement agreement, the thing that we’re most proud of is sticking with the no nondisclosure.”
