Six former employees of eBay Inc have been prosecuted for organizing a cyberbullying campaign against a Massachusetts couple whose online newsletter they considered critical of the e-commerce company, American prosecutors announced on Monday.
US prosecutor Andrew Lelling in Boston said defendants, including two eBay security officials, repeatedly targeted the couple with anonymous email threats and Twitter threats, as well as deliveries such as cockroaches alive, a bloody Halloween pig mask, a funeral wreath and a book on surviving the death of a spouse.
They also sent pornography on behalf of the couple to neighbors and conducted covert surveillance, with the systematic purpose of “terrorizing the couple emotionally and psychologically” and deterring them from criticizing eBay, prosecutors said.
The defendants include former eBay chief safety and security officer James Baugh, 45, of San Jose, California, and former director of global resilience David Harville, 48, of New York . The two were arrested on Monday.
Prosecutors charged the six accused with conspiracy to commit cyber harassment and conspiracy to falsify witnesses.
Counsel for Baugh and Harville did not respond to requests for comment.
EBay said it ended the employment of the defendants last September, cooperated with prosecutors and apologized to the couple.
In a statement released Monday, the San Jose, California-based company said an internal investigation had examined whether its chief executive at the time, Devin Wenig, was involved in the alleged cyberbullying.
Although Wenig made “inappropriate” communications, there was no evidence that he was aware of or authorized actions against the couple, eBay concluded.
The company also said that “a number of considerations” led Wenig to leave eBay last September, which he said was the result of disagreements with the eBay board of directors.
Reuters’ efforts to reach Wenig have been unsuccessful. He told other media that he knew nothing about the alleged harassment and called the charges “unreasonable”.
Prosecutors said the alleged cyber harassment began after an article was published on August 1 in the eBay newsletter about a lawsuit.
The criminal complaint did not name the newsletter or the couple, who edited and published it. He said they lived in Natick, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston.
According to the complaint, an eBay executive identified as executive 1 sent a text message to another executive that the editor of the newsletter had “gone out with a burning piece on the dispute. If you ever demolish it … it’s is the moment. “
When the other executive asked if it meant shutting down the newsletter website, Executive 1 said, “I want it done … She’s a biased troll who needs to be BURNED,” a declared the complaint. Prosecutors said that shortly after the exchange of these messages, the accused began their harassment campaign, which continued for much of August.
At a press conference, Lelling called the alleged harassment an attempt to “militarize the Internet” to protect the eBay brand.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
