eBay Gears Up for Crisis? New Job Posting Signals Potential Trouble Ahead
eBay is looking for a new Crisis and Financial Communications manager, revealing the company may be preparing for a rough 2025 as legal, regulatory, and financial scrutiny heats up.
This exciting opportunity will involve "managing and enhancing eBay's reputation" specifically around financial performance and crisis situations and eBay is looking for someone who already has strong experience working with the press to deliver results.
...a history of developing, pitching, preventing and securing high-impact media coverage.
That's dangerous ground, considering what happened the last time eBay became concerned with preventing high-impact media coverage - the 2019 cyberstalking and harassment campaign targeting journalists Ina and David Steiner in an effort to influence their reporting at EcommerceBytes and unmask the identity of Fidomaster / unsuckEBAY, an anonymous source who also sparked the ire of top executives at the company.
Liz Morton
Seven eBay security employees were charged criminally and pleaded guilty to multiple federal felonies, and an going civil case also includes eBay as well as ex-CEO Devin Wenig, ex-Chief Communications Office Steve Wymer, and ex-SVP Global Operations Wendy Jones, saying communications from the very top egged on the harassment.
Court documents in the ongoing lawsuit seeking an eye-popping ~$500 Million in compensation revealed in response to executive frustration with reporting from EcommerceBytes and unsuckEBAY "dominating eBay's social narrative" on Twitter, Senior Director Security Jim Baugh was tasked with handling the situation after then Chief Legal Officer Marie Oh Huber advised normal legal and comms avenues were a dead end.
In an August 6, 2019 email, Wenig expressed his desire to see the @unsuckEBAY Twitter account shut down and assigned the task to Baugh, with Wymer and Oh Huber copied.
Wymer said he had previously discussed the issue with Baugh and explored all angles with Twitter, but had been unable to get @unsuckEBAY killed.
Oh Huber echoed the frustration, but her and another member of eBay legal, Aaron Johnson, advised there wasn't a strong claim to appeal to Twitter.
Baugh responded that his team had been investigating for weeks and he was close to discovering the identity and location of unsuckEBAY.
Oh Huber accepted that answer with a smiley face emoji, saying she would hold off on pursuing further legal steps in light of Baugh's investigation.
Wymer added more fuel to the fire the next day by making it very clear how utterly vexed by the situation he was, saying any effort to "solve" the problem should be explored...Whatever. It. Takes.
Shortly after this flurry of emails, Baugh deployed a "White Knight Strategy" whereby he and his team would anonymously unleash a barrage of bizarre deliveries, send threatening messages and engage in both online and in person stalking with the goal of then being able to come in officially as eBay to offer to "assist" the Steiners in hopes of creating goodwill and trust.
Liz Morton
Court documents explained the purpose of the White Knight Strategy was to influence the tone of EcommerceBytes reporting and to try to gain their cooperation in revealing the identity of unsuckEBAY:
In the first of these meetings, BAUGH directed Popp, Stockwell, Zea, and Analysts 1, 2, and 3 to anonymously harass Victims 1 and 2...
...BAUGH called the harassment a "distraction campaign" and suggested that scary masks, live insects, or embarrassing items, such as pornography and strippers, be sent to the Victims (and in some cases to their neighbors in the Victims' names)...
...in a separate meeting during the week of August 5th Baugh gathered Popp, Gilbert, and Supervisor 1 to plan another way to harass the Victims.
Specifically, Baugh, Popp, Gilbert, and Supervisor 1 planned to send a series of anonymous tweets and Twitter direct messages...the messages would gradually get more aggressive, culminating in the publication of the Victims’ home address...
...by design, these threatening messages would allow eBay—through Gilbert and another GSR employee—to approach the Victims with an offer of assistance to investigate and stop the threatening messages, thereby earning the Victims' trust, creating good will toward eBay, and getting the Victims' cooperation in identifying the author of the [unsuckeBay] Account. (This will be referred to in this affidavit as "the White Knight Strategy").
Source: Steiner et al v. eBay Inc. et al 1:21-cv-11181 Doc 1
Notably, US Attorney Seth Kosto explicitly called out the White Knight Strategy to out Fidomaster/unsuckEBAY as particularly egregious, abhorrent to First Amendment values and cause for significant sanction in his sentencing memorandum in the criminal case against one of the defendants, Security Manager Philip Cooke.
First, Cooke and his co-conspirators targeted the Victims based on what they had written and published, and because they had made space for others to publish in comments beneath the Newsletter’s articles. Journalism about public companies, especially the world’s largest ecommerce brands, is important to investors, merchants, and customers alike.
That some at eBay disagreed with the Newsletter’s coverage, and that Baugh shared that sentiment as justification to target the Victims, is abhorrent to First Amendment values.
While there is no good reason to harass and intimidate anyone, the logic that led to the Victims’ suffering is absurd. Accepting for purposes of argument that Cooke and others were focused on Fidomaster and his online critiques, they harassed the Victims as a means of identifying and discrediting Fidomaster. That Cooke and others targeted innocent third parties is worthy of significant sanction...
...Cooke asserts that, in the August 6 meeting, he tried to talk his colleagues out of at least some parts of the harassment campaign. But what remained, even in his telling, was a series of increasingly harassing messages directed to a journalist, to set up a sting, to enable Gilbert to make a false offer of assistance, to predispose Victim 1 to help eBay with its Fidomaster problem.
Source: USA v. Cooke 1:20-cr-10126 Doc 21
Records from the lawsuit also showed Wenig and Wymer discussed how they could "eff with" Ina Steiner by promoting a list of seller blogs and websites that did not include EcommerceBytes. Notably, many sites on that list just happened to provide more favorable coverage of eBay in general and Wenig's leadership as CEO in particular.
Wenig, who previously served as CEO of Thomson Reuters Markets before joining eBay, was also apparently no fan of the Wall Street Journal, with comments in this case showing a stark contrast to his pro-free speech public persona.
At Code Conference 2016 hosted by Recode, Wenig was asked for his thoughts on the controversy then brewing between Gawker Media and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, coming down very clearly on the side of press freedom against billionaire tech interests saying "I side with a free media & a free press...we've got to be really careful that powerful voices don't knock down what I call divergent points of view."
But knocking down divergent points of view is exactly what Wenig had in mind for dealing with reporting he didn't like, even going so far as to suggest, among other strategies, that eBay could work with friendly outlets to flood the internet with positive stories that would drive EcommerceBytes further down in search results.
While eBay says they did not act on the suggestion, court documents reveal Wenig reacted positively to the idea and at least wanted to consider moving forward with that plan.
And despite being fired for cause due to his role in this scandal, Wymer went on to become CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Silicon Valley where his expertise in crafting narratives and media manipulation are still apparently coming in quite handy.
CEO Boys & Girls Club of Silicon Valley, Steve Wymer, has been recognized as a "Catalyst" on Silicon Valley Business Journal's @svbizjournal Power 100 List. 👀
— Liz Morton ~ Value Added Resource (@ValueAddedRS) February 6, 2025
Rather ironic wording considering Wymer's role in catalyzing eBay cyberstalking scandal as Comms Chief in 2019. 🧐 pic.twitter.com/97rRzVzYYw
While no further reports of such retaliation against the press have come to light, current eBay leadership, including new CCO Gigi Ganatra Duff, are still actively engaged in creating and shaping narratives and public perception of the company - as evidenced by recent media strategies seeking to"position eBay as a top-tier technology company" and a sports collectibles content deal with New York Times owned The Athletic that raised media ethics and integrity concerns.
Liz Morton
With the cyberstalking scandal still casting a dark cloud over eBay's brand reputation and litigation ongoing, the fact the company apparently sees nothing wrong with putting in writing that they are looking for someone with a history of "preventing high-impact media coverage" proves why they need to hire a crisis comms expert, stat!
But that isn't the only crisis the company is currently facing, so whoever they eventually find for this role is going to have their hands more than full.
On the legal front, eBay's hiring and employment practices have come under increased scrutiny, particularly since acquisition of Sneaker Con's authentication business in 2021 and collectible trading card marketplace TCGPlayer in 2022 added in-house physical labor-centric warehouse operations for the first time in the company's almost 30 year history.
Authentication workers at TCGPLayer voted to form the the first union in eBay history in March 2023, leading to the sudden departure of the company's Chief Accounting Officer when due diligence concerns were raised about the deal and multiple unfair labor practice claims were filed with the National Labor Relations Board.
Liz Morton
TCGUnion-CWA has continued their now year plus long fight to get eBay to bargain in good faith and agree to a contract, filing more complaints with the NLRB along the way.
The company recently undertook an "investor recommended" indepedendant Values Assessment, with the supposed goal of determining if eBay is living up to the principals of their published Human Rights Policy which includes respecting the rights of workers to organize as well as commitments to equal opportunity employment and providing a harassment and discrimination-free workplace.
Liz Morton
eBay is also facing a class action lawsuit from sneaker authenticators employed at the company's former Queens, NY facility, alleging the pay structure violated Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law requiring manual laborers to be paid on a weekly basis.
Liz Morton
However, it's not just authentication workers that eBay has to worry about - Don Bivens PLLC is investigating the company for potential employee rights violations related to underperformance of assets tied to 401(K) benefits that crosses over into eBay's wider white collar salaried tech employee base as well.
Liz Morton
And troubling allegations of discrimination and retaliation have also surfaced amidst backdrop of larger H-1B immigration debate in another ex-eBay employee's lawsuit against the company.
Liz Morton
eBay is also still under DOJ required independent compliance monitoring as a result of a deferred prosecution agreement in the cyberstalking case as well as facing an appeal of the dismissal of an EPA lawsuit filed against the company in 2023.
And while the FTC under Lina Khan did not publicly acknowledge or take up calls for an investigation into alleged anticompetitive practices at eBay last year, that could change now that the Commission is under new leadership who doesn't have Khan's apparent conflict of interest due to ties with eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
Liz Morton
Might newly appointed FTC Chairman @AFergusonFTC be more inclined to look into $EBAY?
— Liz Morton ~ Value Added Resource (@ValueAddedRS) February 3, 2025
It's too early to say but one section of his agenda promising to "[take] on entrenched left-wing ideologues at FTC who take their agenda from liberal journalists & activists" could be not so… pic.twitter.com/VXrXpxzM1Q
The Communications Manager job ad goes on to say this role will be working with outside comms agencies to "analyze media coverage" and "assess reputational risks" with the goal of using their "ability to craft compelling narratives" to engage with a "well-established network of journalist contacts."
The timing of this job ad is particularly interesting given that eBay is expected to report Q4 2024 earnings February 26th while Jefferies analyst John Colantuoni maintains a Sell rating on eBay and Arete Research’s Richard Kramer also recently downgraded the stock to Sell in a report issued on January 21.
What kind of media coverage might pose "reputational risks" for eBay - particularly in regard to their financial performance?
How about deep dives into quarterly earnings reports?
Liz Morton
Exposés on executive performance in the face of lackluster growth?
Liz Morton
Analysis and commentary about eBay's AI initiatives?
Liz Morton
Or maybe investigations into systemic leadership and technical execution failures that continue to plague the platform years after activist investors called these problems out and pushed for change at the company?
Liz Morton
Whether eBay has already established a network of journalist contacts for their financial and crisis comms initiatives, the new hire will be expected to bring their own, or both - either way, this job ad underscores exactly why it's important to vet news sources carefully and always follow the money.
And on that note, a reminder that Value Added Resource is 100% independent and reader supported - no sponsorships, no ads, and no compromises.
