Fortune- The former senior manager of special operations for eBay Inc.’s. global security team was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Boston for his role in a cyberstalking campaign that included sending a preserved fetal pig, a bloody pig Halloween mask and a book on surviving the loss of a spouse to a Massachusetts couple’s home.
Brian Gilbert, 56, of San Jose, Calif., was sentenced by U.S. Senior District Court Judge William Young to time served, one year of supervised release provided that he has no contact with either of the victims, and a $20,000 fine.
The 7th and final eBay employee involved in one of the most hilariously over-the-top reactions I've ever read about was sentenced yesterday. I maybe shouldn't be surprised that a gigantic powerhouse company like eBay would engage in full-blown terrorism in an effort to keep their name clean, and go to such great lengths to silence those who dare besmirch their good name. But eBay is a website that's been around since before my family had the internet. It very well may be the first website I knew about. I would think of all companies, eBay would understand how the internet works. That they would understand they can't control everything written about them. Or more importantly, that nothing anybody writes about them actually matters.
If you're unfamiliar with the story, there's a blog called EcommerceBytes. It reports on ecommerce. The internet tells me EcommerceBytes is a leader in it's field, but when you visit their site, the formatting looks closer to Frank Fleming's Sports Ecyclopedia pre-Barstool Sports than a reputable website.
On top of that, EcommerceBytes has a grand total of one (1) blogger. Her name is Ina Steiner. Her husband is David Steiner, who runs the business side of the website. This mom & pop blog had the nerve to report on eBay. To occasionally report negatively on them. In particular, little Ina Steiner published a blog regarding eBay CEO's Devin Wenig's annual pay.
EcommerceBytes- eBay CEO Devin Wenig makes 152 times the average salary of employees, according to company filings. eBay disclosed the information this week as required by Section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
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In its filing with the SEC, eBay revealed the following about the CEO Pay Ratio metric:
- The median of the annual total compensation of all of our employees, other than Mr. Wenig, was $119,562.
- Mr. Wenig's annual total compensation, as reported in the 2018 Summary Compensation Table, was $18,172,166.
- Based on this information, the ratio of the annual total compensation of Mr. Wenig to the median of the annual total compensation of all employees is estimated to be 152 to 1.
You mean to tell me the CEO of a Fortune 500 company is making a disproportionate amount on money in comparison to his employees? The horror! I'm livid! But instead of simply ignoring the blog and moving on with their lives with zero consequences as they could have, eBay sent a team of 7 employees to the Steiner's hometown of Natick, Massachusetts launch a cyberstalking/real-life stalking/campaign of terror against couple.
Amongst other things, this team of eBay employees campaign invloved
- Sending threatening messages to them online
- Sending a pig fetus to the Steiner's home
- Sending a bloody pig man mask to the Steiner's home (the bloody pig mask from the movie saw, which is the last thing Jigsaw's victims see before they're tortured)
- Sending boxes of live co*ckroaches
- Sending p*rnography to the Steiner's neighbors homes, under David Steiner's name
- Listing the Steiner's home address on social media as the site of yard sales and sex parties
- Sending a book about "surviving the death of a spouse" to the Steiner's home
- Following the book, sent a funeral wreath to the Steiner's home
- Ina Steiner was followed around town by a vehicle
Again, maybe I shouldn't be shocked by all this. But eBay… you should know that you can't control everything written about you on the internet. You should know there's going to be some negative reporting done on your company. And you should really know that type of negative reporting is going to do nothing. eBay is a powerhouse. People aren't going to stop using their service.
It blows my mind that at no point did this group of 7 people didn't take a step back and say, "Hey guys, lets take a deep breath here. Maybe threatening murder is a step to far… Maybe we don't need to channel our inner Jigsaw because our CEO's pay, which was public, was published on a 2-person blog"
But nope. They kept the harassment going. It wasn't until the Steiner's managed to get the license plate number of a vehicle stalking them. They traced to number back to a rental agency. The car was rented by one of the 7 Google employees who were sent to Massachusetts to ruin the lives of a couple bloggers.
This all happened a year ago, but just yesterday the final member of eBay's 7 person team of terror was sentenced.
Jim Baugh - Senior Director of Safety & Security (4.75 years, prison)
David Harville - Director of Global Resiliency (2 years, prison)
Stephanie Popp - Senior Manager of Global Intelligence (1 year, prison)
Philip Cooke - Senior Manager of Security Operations (1.5 years, prison)
Stephanie Stockwell - Manager of Global Intelligence (1 year, house arrest)
Veronica Zea - Contract Intelligence Analyst (1 year, house arrest)
Brian Gilbert - Senior Manager of Special Operations (1 year, house arrest)
Additionally, eBay agreed to pay a $3 million criminal penalty.
Truly one of the craziest overreactions I've ever seen. All for a blog run by a couple ecommerce fans in a small town outside of Boston. f*cking relax eBay. Things are going to be ok. Even being outed for this sad*stic campaign of terror isn't going to affect your stock price. People will continue buying and selling their sh*t on your website until the end of time.
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