‘A horrible nightmare’: the shocking story of the eBay harassment scandal
Jaw-dropping documentary Whatever It Takes details an aggressive stalking campaign targeted towards a couple whose reporting criticized the tech company When Massachusetts husband-and-wife team Ina and David Steiner launched their reporting careers covering Silicon Valley at the turn of the century, the tech beat was still cozy enough to feel personal. The startups were still emerging from…
In 2001, Massachusetts couple Ina and David Steiner began their journalism careers by covering Silicon Valley, an industry still in its infancy. The tech scene was still small, and the journalists often wrote from their own homes. At the time, eBay was a young online auction platform founded on the idea that "people are basically good".
The Steiners started an e-zine called EcommerceBytes, a resource for small business owners using platforms like eBay to sell their products. David Steiner explained that the platform aimed to provide opportunities for "average people, disabled people, elderly people" to earn extra income. The couple's community grew to over 600,000 readers.
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