Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeeyoungk | Hacker News Reader

So the executives who ordered this are getting away with this?

Yes. Even though they were "implicated in some of the text messages captured by the FBI":

Defendant Devin Wenig, then Chief Executive Officer of eBay, and Defendant Steven Wymer, then Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer of eBay, consistently tracked EcommerceBytes' reporting, and became increasingly enraged by what they perceived as the Steiners' negative coverage of eBay and the upper echelons of the corporation.

"Natick couple terrorized in eBay pig-mask campaign sue auction giant"

https://www.universalhub.com/2021/natick-couple-terrorized-e...

They claim not to have known about the harassment and stalking.

Which is a reminder: If you are going to do unethical things, make sure you can prove that your bosses ordered it. Otherwise, in addition to being a rat, you will likely twist in the wind.

Yup, always note your concerns and objections via email and make sure to CC the appropriate people.

"Let's take this offline"

I once worked on a startup founded by lawyers and they would do this all the time. Never put things in writing that they might be flexible on later. I hated that part.

Follow up with an email (or message or whatever the medium is) confirming the agreed-upon outcome of the offline discussion? This is good practice anyway, summarising what was said over an hour long discussion can often reveal people came away with very different interpretation of what was agreed upon

"Just to recap our conversation earlier..."

take the notes, conspicuously, and accompanied by several "come again please, i'm taking notes" if over the phone, ostensibly to make sure that you're doing it to carry the Leader's order in all the glorious details. Kind of James Comey or North Korea style. Years ago, an acquaintance, a former captain of Soviet Army who served at the place pretty intense even during the peace time, had some funny stories how such habit saved his bacon on various occasions and it made me remember that advice.

Yes. Take notes, then send them back via email or some other mechanism that can be discovered later.

It's their job to know

Yes there's a separate set of laws for the wealthy corporate class.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com