For many people, especially those of us who already have some gray hair, there is eBay one of the main references of the “old” Internetfrom the late nineties and the first decade of the 2000s. For many people, the more than popular online auction service has become the first e-commerce service they have used in their life, and for many others, the first online platform through which all kinds of products are sold.

But today it is not as popular as it used to be It’s still an ideal place to find certain types of products. For example, last year I was looking for a “nostalgic” gift for my brother and found it on eBay, although admittedly it was the first purchase I made on the service in a few years. And it is evident that Amazon has not only hit the local store hard, but has also given other online services like eBay a hard time.

Except for those who have had a negative experience buying or selling through the serviceIn general, eBay has a fairly friendly image among mere mortals and it is true that they have somehow managed to evolve to adapt to the current e-commerce market.

However, in the month of August 2019, eBay became a clear and profound embodiment of evil. The company made life impossible for two people who dared to criticize the platform for 18 days due to the behavior of some of its employees. For just over half a month, no means or no evil was spared in trying to intimidate people exercising their freedom of speech. And this, finally, It cost eBay three million dollars.

It was the summer of 2019 when Jim Baugh, eBay’s former chief security officer, at the urging of then-CEO Devin Wenig and then-chief communications officer Steven Wymer, focused on David and Ina Steiner, a couple and editors of a digital newsletter called EcommerceBytesin which they published negative reviews on eBay, something completely legitimate, even if it could upset (and understandably so) the company’s managers.

In response to this criticism, and according to the plaintiff in the case in which eBay was accused of what happened, «they put victims in hell«. And it’s not an exaggeration, since in just over two weeks, the defendants carried out actions such as anonymously sending a book on how to survive the death of spouses, a blood mask, a pig fetus, a funeral wreath, and live insects, among other things. Except, They also sent threatening messagesand even some of the employees involved went to the Steiner headquarters to install (obviously without their knowledge) tracking device in your personal car.

When the affected couple reported the incident and the police launched an investigation, those involved tried to cover their tracks, but luckily it was in vain as the investigation eventually established their involvement and they were fired from the company. However, after a trial, eBay had to take responsibility for the actions of its former employees, many of them are already sentenced to prison termscompensating the couple three million dollars, the maximum set by law for these characteristics.

The current management of eBay is completely against what happened, claims to sympathize with the Steiners and has taken various measures in recent years to prevent similar events from happening again. So we can accept that current eBay will no longer carry out actions of this type, but it is important now that the judgment has been handed down to remember the dangerous precedent that may have been set by the 2019 action.

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