DOJ Charges Former eBay Execs With Cyberstalking in Bizarre and Terrifying Plot to Silence Online Critics

[GURPS]

In one of the most bizarre stories to ever come out of corporate America, the Department of Justice charged six former executives at eBay with cyberstalking two tech reporters who were critical of the popular sales site. Wired reports the extreme lengths that executives at eBay took to silence and intimidate critics, including a sustained harassment campaign that included physical stalking, attempting to track the target’s car, sending dead animals and scary items to the home, and online threats of violence.

“The result, as alleged in the complaint, was a systematic campaign, fueled by the resources of a Fortune 500 company, to emotionally and psychologically terrorize this middle-aged couple in Natick [Massachusetts] with the goal of deterring them from writing bad things online about eBay,” US attorney Andrew Lelling said in a press conference Monday morning. While the complaint does not identify the victims by name, it cites specific headlines and stories that indicate that Baugh and his team were after the husband and wife publishers of EcommerceBytes.
The harassment, prosecutors say, was not the only endgame. In a grotesque bit of 3-D chess, the eBay team allegedly responsible for the campaign planned to eventually step in and offer to help make it stop. This “white knight” strategy, as the criminal complaint calls it, was intended to create goodwill toward eBay, so that coverage would improve, and the victims would identify whoever was behind that troublesome commenter account.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politi...ifying-plot-to-silence-online-critics-n539957