we have never seen a company that did something like this before says us attorney six former employees were recently named in federal charges that were an indication of the lengths some companies will go to hit back at detractorscreditjohn g mabangloepa via shutterstockjune 27 2020last summer members of ebays private security team sent live roaches and a bloody pig mask to the home of a suburban boston couple who published a niche ecommerce newsletterthe harassment campaign which also included physical surveillance sending pornographic videos to the couples neighbors posting ads inviting sexual partners to the couples home and an attempt to attach a tracking device to their car was detailed earlier this month in a federal indictment against six former ebay employeesthe lurid 51page indictment describing how the employees of a multibilliondollar company were loosed in what authorities described as an unhinged and illegal effort to intimidate critics drew national attention to the stunning lengths some tech companies will go when responding to their criticssilicon valley companies have stacked what they often call their trust and safety teams with former police officers and national intelligence analysts more often than not their work is well within the law protecting executives and intellectual property fending off blackmail attempts and spotting theft they conduct background checks on companies that could be acquisition targets and they ensure employees arent doing anything illegalbut the industrys intense focus on reputation can lead their security units astray those perils were laid bare when federal authorities revealed the charges against the ebay employeesmost companies especially established hightech companies have units within them that do this kind of work respond in as close to real time as they can to online criticism of the company to take steps to protect the brand andrew lelling us attorney for the district of massachusetts said but he added i can tell you that at least internally we have never seen a company that did something like this beforeprosecutors charged the six ebay employees with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and witness tampering but noted that ebays campaign against the husbandandwife publishing duo was ordered up by senior executivesi want her done steven wymer ebays former communications chief told james baugh the companys former senior director of safety and security she is a biased troll who needs to get burned downin case there was any confusion mr wymer added i want to see ashesimagecreditmike coppolagetty imagescontacted this past week mr wymer who was not one of the employees charged in the indictment said i would never condone or participate in any such activity he added that he was constrained in what he could say beyond that ebay said in a statement that neither the company nor any current ebay employee was indictedprivate security teams have long been part of corporate america among them insurers fraud investigators and the seed police as farmers call investigators for the agricultural giant monsanto who secretly videotape farmers infiltrate community meetings and recruit informants in their hunt for