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BOSTON — <\/span>eBay Inc. agreed to pay almost $50 million to a Massachusetts couple who said former employees of the company targeted them with threats<\/a> and bizarre anonymous deliveries \u2014 including live insects, a funeral wreath and a bloody pig Halloween mask, according to settlement details released Tuesday. <\/p>\n The parties reported reaching a tentative settlement in February<\/a> as the case was headed to trial, but they were unable to finalize it. David and Ina Steiner asked a federal judge in June to restore the case to the trial calendar and reached a new settlement this month.<\/p>\n The agreement with the Steiners, founders of EcommerceBytes, a newsletter covering the e-commerce industry, includes an additional $7 million in charitable donations, including to organizations supporting First Amendment rights. The settlement contains no confidentiality provision, allowing the Steiners to discuss the case publicly. <\/p>\n \u201cDavid and I were on the same page that this settlement should and must be made public \u2014 as victims who want to prevent something like this from ever happening to anyone else, and as reporters who believe in transparency,\u201d Ina Steiner said Tuesday in an email response to questions from The Associated Press. \u201cWe hope that this case will serve as a deterrent.\u201d<\/p>\n The settlement resolves more than six years of criminal and civil proceedings<\/a> stemming from the harassment campaign. In their 2021 lawsuit filed in Boston federal court<\/a>, the Steiners said that the company engaged in a conspiracy to \u201cintimidate, threaten to kill, torture, terrorize, stalk and silence them\u201d in order to \u201cstifle their reporting on eBay.\u201d The Natick residents, who report on the e-commerce industry in their newsletter, said they were subjected to cyberstalking, death threats and in-person surveillance by former eBay workers.<\/p>\n Ina Steiner said the campaign began with threatening direct messages on social media before escalating into anonymous deliveries of live cockroaches and spiders, a funeral wreath, a bloody pig Halloween mask and a book about surviving the death of a spouse. The employees also sent pornographic magazines with David Steiner\u2019s name to a neighbor\u2019s home and planned to install a GPS device on the couple\u2019s car.<\/p>\n She said she did not initially know who was behind it or why. <\/p>\n \u201cI could not conceive that a company I had been covering for the past two decades had tried to terrorize us into stopping our reporting,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n When the lawsuit was filed, the company said \u201cthe misconduct of these former employees was wrong,\u201d and that it would \u201cdo what is fair and appropriate to try to address what the Steiners went through.\u201d <\/p>\n eBay reiterated its apology Tuesday, saying, \u201cWhat the Steiners were subjected to by former eBay employees in 2019 was wrong, reprehensible and should never have happened.\u201d The company also acknowledged \u201cthe unprofessional tone in internal communications\u201d by former CEO Devin Wenig, former Chief Communications Officer Steve Wymer and former Senior Vice President Wendy Jones.<\/p>\n The company said the conduct \u201cis not representative of eBay\u2019s culture\u201d and said it has since changed leadership and strengthened its policies, procedures and ethics training.<\/p>\n In 2020, federal prosecutors charged<\/a> seven former eBay employees, alleging they carried out a coordinated harassment campaign against the couple after becoming angered by coverage in the couple\u2019s online newsletter. Most of the defendants pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy and cyberstalking and were later sentenced to prison terms or home confinement.<\/p>\n