While that's a given, it won't stop companies hiring people and paying them sufficiently to make them accept a prison term as a part of the job. eBay needs to face significant damages in order to drive home a disincentive for other corporations considering doing the same. It needs to be high enough that the share price takes a long term hit.
Why would that deter people if they aren’t directly paying for it? You think it would force companies to police it themselves? I think jail time makes sense, and for them to be directly sued and the company to a lesser degree, pretty much what happened here.
You're right! And the article says that many of them did go to prison:
> Several of the executives and employees were arrested and convicted on federal charges. One executive, security head Jim Baugh, got nearly five years in prison. The company's CEO at the time, Devin Wenig, was referenced, but not by name, in federal charging documents. He was never charged, but did lose his job. In addition to Baugh, former head of security, the convicted eBay minions are:
> David Harville, former Director of Global Resiliency, who was sentenced to 24 months in prison in September 2022; Stephanie Popp, former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence, who was sentenced to 12 months in prison in October 2022; Philip Cooke, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 12 months of home confinement in July 2021; Stephanie Stockwell and Veronica Zea, a former Manager of Global Intelligence and a contract intelligence analyst, respectively, who were each sentenced to one year in home confinement in October and November 2022. Brian Gilbert, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.
Hubris was a basic concept of the worldview of the ancient Greeks. When someone, overestimating his abilities and power (physical [1], but mainly political [2], military [3] and economic[4]), behaved violently, arrogantly and offensively towards others, the laws of the state and above all against the unwritten divine law -which imposed limits on human action-, he was considered to have committed "infamy", i.e. he presented behavior in which he attempted to transcend his mortal nature and assimilate himself to the gods [5], consequently the insulting and exasperating them.
This violent, insolent and arrogant attitude/behavior, which for the ancient Greek world was a violation of the moral order and an attempt to overturn the social balance and the order of the world in general, was believed to (repeatedly, and even after warnings from the gods themselves [ 6]) ultimately led to the downfall and destruction of the "insolent"[7] insolence > revile > revile).
Attributing the concept of hubris and its consequences, as at least presented in its most ancient form, with the scheme hubris→ati→nemesis→tisis [8] we can say that the ancients believed that a "hubris"[9] usually caused the intervention of the gods, and especially of Zeus, who sent to the insulter the "aten"[10], i.e. the cloudiness, the blindness of the mind. This, in turn, led the insulter to new insults, until he committed a very great folly, fell into a very serious error, which caused "nemesin"[11], the wrath and revenge of the gods, which brought about the "tisin"[12], i.e. his punishment and crushing/destruction.
From the classical era onwards, in many cases the concepts of Atis, Judgment and Nemesis seem to acquire in the consciousness of people an equivalent meaning, that of divine punishment.
The word Úbrís beyond the words its modern Greek use with the meanings "curses" (mainly in the plural "Úvreis") and consequent "something that affects someone's honor and dignity" -which are normal developments of the ancient meaning-, several sometimes it is also used in our time, at a more careful level of discourse, with its ancient Greek meaning to characterize similar arrogant behaviors of our fellow human beings.
Am I the only one here who feels an irrational draw towards language which aren't my first? I can't be the only one :D
1) Interesting for me to recall Hellenistic philosophy, which I've read somewhere in the past was one of the earliest or first places humans were taught / realized that "I" am worth education, healthcare, access to athletics and entertainment, etc. Alexander the great, right? Happy to be corrected.
2) Further really interesting to read the flow you present from hubris→tisis. In my mind, [1] above doesn't wholly negate the idea of 'the gods' + demigods being the arbiters of justice and consequences, but that's not what I'm focused on: how interesting to see even so far back the idea that our negative actions towards others and against the boundaries set by the gods will return to us to the point of harming us, even to the point of 'tisin?' I'm laughing at how much fun my brain is having at parsing all of this!
Top executives of a major tech company sending death threats, flying operatives out to the victims, stalking and tracking them, and conducting a dirty character assassination campaign.
I've been using eBay since the '90s, mostly happily, so I'd prefer that it turn out not to be an organized crime outfit, and the company not be seized like a criminal operation would.
But $3M fine for getting caught playing KGB seems like zero deterrence to the next unhinged tech executive who has no sense of where to draw the line wrt evil. It's only a message to pay for smarter thugs.
> But $3M fine for getting caught playing KGB seems like zero deterrence to the next unhinged tech executive who has no sense of where to draw the line wrt evil. It's only a message to pay for smarter thugs.
3 of them went to jail which would seem like rather more of a deterrent to wannabe corporate capos than their former employer getting fined enough to put a dent in quarterly earnings
>But $3M fine for getting caught playing KGB seems like zero deterrence to the next unhinged tech executive
there was also prison time. FTA:
Several of the executives and employees were arrested and convicted on federal charges. One executive, security head Jim Baugh, got nearly five years in prison. The company's CEO at the time, Devin Wenig, was referenced, but not by name, in federal charging documents. He was never charged, but did lose his job. In addition to Baugh, former head of security, the convicted eBay minions are:
David Harville, former Director of Global Resiliency, who was sentenced to 24 months in prison in September 2022; Stephanie Popp, former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence, who was sentenced to 12 months in prison in October 2022; Philip Cooke, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 12 months of home confinement in July 2021; Stephanie Stockwell and Veronica Zea, a former Manager of Global Intelligence and a contract intelligence analyst, respectively, who were each sentenced to one year in home confinement in October and November 2022. Brian Gilbert, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.
eBay (also Amazon) is a major outlet for goods stolen by organized retail theft rings in the United States, and there are many news stories about people who've sold millions in stolen goods on eBay - and since eBay gets a percentage of those sales, there is undoubtedly an organized crime aspect of the whole operation, even if it's one step removed. Comparable to HSBC laundering drug cartel money, for example.
It is a scale. If you run a pawn shop you may dial up or down your blind eye for handling stolen goods. To the point where you can become the go to place for selling stolen stuff.
The existence of professional shoplifting rings has been massively overstated by retail outfits looking for a reason to get the government to regulate Amazon more. They do exist, but they're not common.
eBay cheated me out of over $5,000 because of fraud, they failed to honor any seller protections, and charged me $250 for the fraudulent transaction. I charged the money back, and they made several unauthorized withdraws from my bank account in an attempt to take that 250 back from me. They ignored repeated requests to delete my personal banking information on file. I worked with my bank, charged the money back (a second time) and followed up by closing my bank account (an merchant block wasn't sufficient because they only last 6 months).
eBay is a deeply unethical company. This story doesn't surprise me
I worked for a shop back in 2005-2006 that did some portion of their sales on eBay. eBay was constantly holding thousands of their dollars for, from what I recall, not any substantive reason.
The stalking referenced in OP is a bit of a surprise, but none of the stories in these comments are.
This real story of dirty-tricks thugs stupid enough to get caught, and the "Silicon Valley" TV bit about Gavin Belson trying to get his people to kill a protestor ("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP5pt1bvutQ")... made me wonder how often wealthy sociopaths, even in the US, are quietly having people problematic to them neutralized in a criminal way.
I wonder how many people listened to the complaints of this couple and just wrote them off as paranoid loons. The allegations read like classic "gangstalking," which isn't supposed to exist.
"UniversalHub" is a play on the old shtick that Boston is the "Hub of the Universe."
As a Bostonian, it's a reasonably well known local news blog run primarily by one individual (Adam Gaffin) that yes, does report on actual news. I sent him info about a robbery (with video stills) at an apartment complex I lived at, and he covered in, in which both FOX 25 and I think NBC Boston ultimately then used him as a source (and were referred to me by Adam for further info).
So super-Boston metro specific, very niche, and very tiny, but I've been aware of it for at least 15 years.
That's not nearly enough. According to another comment here, Ebay is a $20B company, so I think $3B is a bare minimum. Maybe $30B would be a better figure: this should basically force the company into the plaintiff's ownership, and cause all the shareholders to lose everything, which I think is fair.
Huh? You want to shut the company down or nationalize it, and I want to give it entirely to the plaintiffs, but you don't think my idea is fair? I'm not sure I see much difference between our remedies.
46 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] thread> Several of the executives and employees were arrested and convicted on federal charges. One executive, security head Jim Baugh, got nearly five years in prison. The company's CEO at the time, Devin Wenig, was referenced, but not by name, in federal charging documents. He was never charged, but did lose his job. In addition to Baugh, former head of security, the convicted eBay minions are:
> David Harville, former Director of Global Resiliency, who was sentenced to 24 months in prison in September 2022; Stephanie Popp, former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence, who was sentenced to 12 months in prison in October 2022; Philip Cooke, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 12 months of home confinement in July 2021; Stephanie Stockwell and Veronica Zea, a former Manager of Global Intelligence and a contract intelligence analyst, respectively, who were each sentenced to one year in home confinement in October and November 2022. Brian Gilbert, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.
(google translation from an article in Greek language)(https://www.capital.gr/o-kostas-stoupas-grafei/2208004/ubris...)
Hubris was a basic concept of the worldview of the ancient Greeks. When someone, overestimating his abilities and power (physical [1], but mainly political [2], military [3] and economic[4]), behaved violently, arrogantly and offensively towards others, the laws of the state and above all against the unwritten divine law -which imposed limits on human action-, he was considered to have committed "infamy", i.e. he presented behavior in which he attempted to transcend his mortal nature and assimilate himself to the gods [5], consequently the insulting and exasperating them.
This violent, insolent and arrogant attitude/behavior, which for the ancient Greek world was a violation of the moral order and an attempt to overturn the social balance and the order of the world in general, was believed to (repeatedly, and even after warnings from the gods themselves [ 6]) ultimately led to the downfall and destruction of the "insolent"[7] insolence > revile > revile).
Attributing the concept of hubris and its consequences, as at least presented in its most ancient form, with the scheme hubris→ati→nemesis→tisis [8] we can say that the ancients believed that a "hubris"[9] usually caused the intervention of the gods, and especially of Zeus, who sent to the insulter the "aten"[10], i.e. the cloudiness, the blindness of the mind. This, in turn, led the insulter to new insults, until he committed a very great folly, fell into a very serious error, which caused "nemesin"[11], the wrath and revenge of the gods, which brought about the "tisin"[12], i.e. his punishment and crushing/destruction.
From the classical era onwards, in many cases the concepts of Atis, Judgment and Nemesis seem to acquire in the consciousness of people an equivalent meaning, that of divine punishment.
The word Úbrís beyond the words its modern Greek use with the meanings "curses" (mainly in the plural "Úvreis") and consequent "something that affects someone's honor and dignity" -which are normal developments of the ancient meaning-, several sometimes it is also used in our time, at a more careful level of discourse, with its ancient Greek meaning to characterize similar arrogant behaviors of our fellow human beings.
1) Interesting for me to recall Hellenistic philosophy, which I've read somewhere in the past was one of the earliest or first places humans were taught / realized that "I" am worth education, healthcare, access to athletics and entertainment, etc. Alexander the great, right? Happy to be corrected.
2) Further really interesting to read the flow you present from hubris→tisis. In my mind, [1] above doesn't wholly negate the idea of 'the gods' + demigods being the arbiters of justice and consequences, but that's not what I'm focused on: how interesting to see even so far back the idea that our negative actions towards others and against the boundaries set by the gods will return to us to the point of harming us, even to the point of 'tisin?' I'm laughing at how much fun my brain is having at parsing all of this!
I've been using eBay since the '90s, mostly happily, so I'd prefer that it turn out not to be an organized crime outfit, and the company not be seized like a criminal operation would.
But $3M fine for getting caught playing KGB seems like zero deterrence to the next unhinged tech executive who has no sense of where to draw the line wrt evil. It's only a message to pay for smarter thugs.
3 of them went to jail which would seem like rather more of a deterrent to wannabe corporate capos than their former employer getting fined enough to put a dent in quarterly earnings
there was also prison time. FTA:
Several of the executives and employees were arrested and convicted on federal charges. One executive, security head Jim Baugh, got nearly five years in prison. The company's CEO at the time, Devin Wenig, was referenced, but not by name, in federal charging documents. He was never charged, but did lose his job. In addition to Baugh, former head of security, the convicted eBay minions are:
David Harville, former Director of Global Resiliency, who was sentenced to 24 months in prison in September 2022; Stephanie Popp, former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence, who was sentenced to 12 months in prison in October 2022; Philip Cooke, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 12 months of home confinement in July 2021; Stephanie Stockwell and Veronica Zea, a former Manager of Global Intelligence and a contract intelligence analyst, respectively, who were each sentenced to one year in home confinement in October and November 2022. Brian Gilbert, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.
I know I don't.
Where do you think stuff that professional shoplifting rings steal ends up?
https://youtu.be/KdiX3g46Ulg
https://youtu.be/l2lSZcTlZAE
https://youtu.be/t2XEe0cJZEs
https://youtu.be/yX77hkB-poo
eBay is a deeply unethical company. This story doesn't surprise me
The stalking referenced in OP is a bit of a surprise, but none of the stories in these comments are.
As a Bostonian, it's a reasonably well known local news blog run primarily by one individual (Adam Gaffin) that yes, does report on actual news. I sent him info about a robbery (with video stills) at an apartment complex I lived at, and he covered in, in which both FOX 25 and I think NBC Boston ultimately then used him as a source (and were referred to me by Adam for further info).
So super-Boston metro specific, very niche, and very tiny, but I've been aware of it for at least 15 years.
They should be forced to closed immediately or be nationalized.