Lessons from eBay’s Stalking Scandal
eBay’s grotesque and unrelenting attacks on its critics were documented in extraordinary detail in a New York Times article yesterday. The investigative story makes eBay sound more like an organized crime syndicate than a respectable business.
Every merchant and business today is sensitive about its ratings and reputation. I wrote recently about fake positive reviews (September 10 blog). It appears corporate efforts to manage reputation can take a different turn and focus on intimidating and threatening those who write negative reviews and critical commentary. A radio story on the same theme was featured recently on NPR’s Reveal this weekend, featuring a mental health clinic that threatened lawsuits against those who wrote negative reviews on Yelp. (See link below)
How did eBay, an otherwise respectable company, one built on creating trust between buyers and sellers, take such a dark turn? As reported in the New York Times, the campaign against a mom-and-pop blogging couple and a gadfly who used Twitter to criticize eBay, started eBay’s CEO Devin Wenig came under fire from Elliott Management, a hedge fund that had bought into eBay. To keep his job, Mr. Wenig apparently decided he could not tolerate criticism of the company. He hired a new corporate communications head Steve Wymer, and together they adopted an aggressive style which contrasted with eBay’s traditional values which emphasized trust in others. After a critical post by the wife of the blogging couple, Wenig texted Wymer: “We are going to crush this lady.” He had earlier emailed Wymer to “Take her down” when she criticized various expenditures such as a pub eBay built on its campus for employees.
Wymer, whose email signature proclaims “Whatever It Takes,” appears to have turned to James Baugh, head of eBay’s Global Security and Resiliency team, an otherwise traditional company security office. Baugh embraced the task with relish, sending teams across the company to surveil the couple and try to get the Twitter critic to identify himself. Baugh had his team paint threatening signs on the couples’ fence, send a bloody pig mask and a box of cockroaches to them, order pizzas repeatedly delivered in the middle of the night, tried to install a GPS device on their car, and sent copies of Hustler magazine to neighbors with the couples’ name on them. After local police traced the surveillance cars and the origin of the pizza orders, they quickly identified Baugh’s Global Security team, and with the help of eBay’s own legal organization, the campaign unraveled.
This story may remind you of Henry II of England’s comment “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest,” which led to the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in the year 1170. I have often wondered how much blame should fall on Henry II and how much on the assassins. We can ask the same question here. Should Wenig and Wymer bear the blame or the eager security chief Baugh? Only Baugh and six of his staff, two in their 20s, have been arrested. Wymer was fired, but Wenig resigned and received his $57 million severance package. Wenig has now been reelected to the board of General Motors, which says his behavior did not involve any GM business. Wymer has been hired as the new CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley, and was praised by the organization as “a leader with integrity.” If you were on GM’s or this nonprofit’s boards, would you have done the same?
Note: GM had its own parallel scandal in 1964-5 when GM’s overeager general counsel tried to “control” the threat from an auto safety critic by attempts to bribe him with money, women, and finally men for sexual purposes. The critic was Ralph Nader who used the half-million-dollar settlement to start his activist empire.
Relevant articles:
Inside eBay’s Cockroach Cult: The Ghastly Story of a Stalking Scandal