eBay hit with $3M fine, admits to “terrorizing innocent people”

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 228 points –
eBay hit with $3M fine, admits to “terrorizing innocent people”
arstechnica.com

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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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.

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.

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

"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.

“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.

Which the CCO was not afforded. Strange zig-zagging lines to draw.

Always attribute to stupidity ... etc.

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

Probably because they’re employees, not management.

The then-Senior Director of Safety and Security for eBay got an almost 5 year prison sentence, and it seems he reported directly to the CEO. That sounds like management to me!

And yet the CEO is walking free, and the business is still in operation.

Since corporations are people, surely we can jail the CEO and board and prevent them from doing any business for 24 months?

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?

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.