eBay has agreed to pay a $3 million fine in connection with a corporate cyberstalking campaign targeting a Massachusetts couple in 2019.
The cyberstalking campaign was conducted by several eBay employees, some of whom were executives, who targeted the couple after they posted a newsletter that was critical of the e-commerce giant.
The cyberstalking campaign involved the employees sending the couple a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig, a funeral wreath, live insects and a book on surviving the death of a spouse.
“eBay engaged in absolutely horrific, criminal conduct,” said Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy in a press release.
“The company’s conduct in 2019 was wrong and reprehensible,” said eBay CEO Jamie Iannone in the press release.
The Amazon-owned livestreaming platform will cut 35% of its staff, or roughly 500 employees, Bloomberg reports, and will announce the reduction as early as this week.
Shortly after Twitch co-founder and longtime CEO Emmett Shear handed the reigns to its now-CEO Dan Clancy, the company laid off 400 employees.
Twitch faces steep operating costs to support livestream content at such a large scale.
In a 2022 blog post, Clancy stated that each high-volume streamer on Twitch costs the company about $1,000 per month, citing Amazon Web Service’s interactive video rates.
“Delivering high definition, low latency, always available live video to nearly every corner of the world is expensive,” Clancy wrote.
Some of the trickiest and most foreign are legal because the legal world is unfamiliar and ever changing.
What are some of the impactful legal mistakes founders make, what are the implications, and how can they avoid them or mitigate risk?
For example, a founder might promise early employees equity in percentages without clarifying what vesting terms apply or what type of stock will be issued.
Founders or early employees frequently claim that promises were made orally or by email.
Founders or early employees frequently claim that promises were made orally or by email.
Just a few weeks after its most recent round of layoffs, Unity is once again reducing its workforce.
Unity is the maker of a video game engine that is widely used in the video game industry.
Under the old pricing scheme, indie developers who earn less than $100,000 per year would be able to use Unity for free.
Bigger video game studios would have to pay $1,900 per user per year.
And yet, that controversy had some wide-ranging consequences as many developers lost faith in the game engine company.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint alleging that SpaceX illegally fired eight employees who wrote and distributed an open letter with workplace concerns.
Circulated in June 2022, the open letter called out how SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk’s public behavior was harming the company’s reputation.
At the time, Business Insider alleged that SpaceX paid a $250,000 settlement to a flight attendant that Elon Musk sexually harassed.
As a result of its complaint, the NLRB regional director in Los Angeles will seek to arrive at a settlement with SpaceX.
If SpaceX doesn’t settle, the company will face a hearing before an administrative law judge in March.
The cybersecurity sector was once largely untouched by the vast headcount reductions taking place across the wider industry, but 2023 shows no sector is immune.
But it’s clear that cybersecurity firms are no longer exempt from layoffs, despite a strong workforce and an ever-increasing number of cyberattacks and breaches.
According to data from layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi, more than 110 cybersecurity companies have made cuts since the beginning of 2023.
The layoffs came almost exactly a year after Malwarebytes eliminated 14% of its global workforce.
While many cybersecurity firms blamed economic headwinds for reductions in headcount, Malwarebytes CEO Marcin Kleczynski told TechCrunch that the layoffs were an exercise in rationalizing expenditures.
E-commerce and fintech company Bolt, which was at one time the subject of a federal probe, confirmed it laid off 29% of its staff, according to a company spokesperson.
This latest round of layoffs, which the spokesperson said happened last week, follow a handful of other layoffs made by the company since 2022.
It’s not clear how many employees the company had at the time of the layoffs or which roles were impacted.
The company, which provides software to retailers to speed up checkout, raised around $1 billion in total venture-backed funding and at one time was valued at $11 billion.
The company announced partnerships with retailers, including Saks OFF 5TH, Shinola, Filson, Lafayette 148 and Toys”R”Us, in November.
Cruise spokesperson Erik Moser confirmed the departures and shared a statement, but declined to comment on whether these employees were fired.
“Today, following an initial analysis of the October 2 incident and Cruise’s response to it, nine individuals departed Cruise.
A video, which TechCrunch viewed a day after the incident, showed the robotaxi braking aggressively and coming to a stop over the woman.
Morale at Cruise has been low since the October 2 incident, with employees pointing the finger at poor management that didn’t prioritize safety at the company.
Initial layoffs affected contract workers who had jobs cleaning, charging and maintaining the vehicles as well as answering customer support inquiries.
Cruise spokesperson Erik Moser confirmed the departures and shared a statement, but declined to comment on whether these employees were fired.
“Today, following an initial analysis of the October 2 incident and Cruise’s response to it, nine individuals departed Cruise.
A video, which TechCrunch viewed a day after the incident, showed the robotaxi braking aggressively and coming to a stop over the woman.
Morale at Cruise has been low since the October 2 incident, with employees pointing the finger at poor management that didn’t prioritize safety at the company.
Initial layoffs affected contract workers who had jobs cleaning, charging and maintaining the vehicles as well as answering customer support inquiries.
Cruise spokesperson Erik Moser confirmed the departures and shared a statement, but declined to comment on whether these employees were fired.
“Today, following an initial analysis of the October 2 incident and Cruise’s response to it, nine individuals departed Cruise.
A video, which TechCrunch viewed a day after the incident, showed the robotaxi braking aggressively and coming to a stop over the woman.
Morale at Cruise has been low since the October 2 incident, with employees pointing the finger at poor management that didn’t prioritize safety at the company.
Initial layoffs affected contract workers who had jobs cleaning, charging and maintaining the vehicles as well as answering customer support inquiries.
