The Wall Street Journal - 02.08.2019

B4| Friday, August 2, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

TECHNOLOGY WSJ.com/Tech

EBay Inc. is suing three
Amazon.comInc. employees
who it claims worked to ille-
gally recruit its third-party
sellers, the latest twist in a
nearly yearlong tussle be-
tween the e-commerce com-
petitors.
The lawsuit, filed Wednes-
day in a San Jose, Calif., fed-
eral court, accuses the trio of

BYSARAHE.NEEDLEMAN

violating federal racketeering

laws and claims they know-

ingly harmed eBay to bolster

profits for their employer and

themselves. An Amazon

spokeswoman declined to

comment on the latest suit.

EBay first raised the allega-

tions in a cease-and-desist let-

ter it sent to Amazon in Octo-

ber saying the Seattle firm

had contacted eBay sellers on

a platform used by many to

communicate, and attempted

to persuade them to leave the

marketplace. The letter

claimed roughly 50 Amazon

sales representatives had sent

more than 1,000 messages to

sellers on its platform.

Lacking a response from

Amazon, eBay then filed suit

against the company over the

matter about two weeks later.

That case is in arbitration.

David Grable, an attorney

for eBay, said Thursday that

the company brought its suit

in part because a person with

firsthand knowledge of the al-

leged scheme came forward

with new information.

EBay’s new lawsuit targets

Amazon managers it believes

helped coordinate the alleged

scheme. According to the com-

plaint, the defendants and

other Amazon employees di-

rected dozens of sales repre-

sentatives to set up eBay ac-

counts to use the platform’s

internal messaging system to

recruit sellers.

The alleged maneuver vio-

lated eBay’s policies and in-

duced eBay sellers to do the

same, the lawsuit said. Ama-

zon representatives, in com-

munication with sellers,

worked to avoid detection by

providing unconventional

phone-number formats and

suggesting that merchants

write those numbers down

and then delete the messages.

EBay and Amazon both rely

on independent merchants to

stock their virtual shelves with

consumer goods. EBay doesn’t

sell its own merchandise,

while Amazon does. In April,

Amazon Chief Executive Jeff

Bezos said 58% of items sold

through the company’s plat-

forms are from third-party

sellers.

Amazon has faced scrutiny

in Washington alongside sev-

eral other tech giants over

their size and business prac-

tices. The Justice Department

said last month that it was

opening a broad antitrust re-

view into whether the compa-

nies, which include Facebook

Inc., Apple Inc. and Alphabet

Inc.’s Google, are unlawfully

stifling competition.

Amazon is also subject to a

European Union antitrust in-

vestigation into its treatment

of its merchants. The EU’s top

antitrust enforcer said in July

that its investigation would

examine whether Amazon is

abusing its dual role as a

seller of its own products and

a marketplace operator.

The eBay lawsuit accuses

the defendants of providing

quotas for Amazon represen-

tatives to recruit eBay sellers.

“I work directly for Amazon

and our Shoes and Softlines

department is still looking for

great sellers like yourself to

help ‘fill in the gaps’ in our 3P

marketplace,” one Amazon

representative wrote, accord-

ing to the complaint.

EBay Says Amazon Staff Poached Sellers

Lawsuit accuses three

from e-commerce rival

of breaking racketeer

laws with alleged lure

punish bad actors or make U.S.

phone companies more willing

to block suspect call traffic

from abroad, FCC officials say.

Instead of having to prove

that wire fraud was committed

in the U.S., for example, offi-

cials could show the overseas

caller spoofed its caller ID to

defraud Americans. That, in

turn, could make it easier for

enforcement officials to seize

domestic assets in the cases

they bring.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said

the change would help the

agency pursue bad actors

overseas, adding that more

work remains to be done to

fight robocalls.

Earlier this year, the FCC

gave U.S. phone companies ex-

plicit permission to spot and

block traffic that appears to be

illegal. Making international

number spoofing illegal may

encourage carriers to block

more suspect overseas call

traffic.

A spokesman for the Fed-

eral Trade Commission said

that agency has a separate

telemarketing sales rule that

prohibits spoofing caller-ID in-

formation for those calls, re-

gardless of their origin.

In addition to extending the

reach of caller-ID standards to

overseas callers, the change

will broaden the rules to en-

compass text messages and

one-way internet-based calls.

Robocalls are the top con-

sumer complaint for the FCC,

but stopping them has proved

difficult because of regulatory

loopholes, fast-evolving tech-

nology that makes placing a

large number of calls cheap

and easy for scammers, and fi-

nancial incentives built into

the U.S. phone system.

It is legal for robocallers

overseas to trick U.S. consum-

ers by disguising their phone

numbers. The Federal Commu-

nications Commission just

voted to change that.

The regulator voted Thurs-

day on a change to caller-ID

rules that will extend a ban on

faking caller information for

malicious purposes to calls

coming from abroad.

Scammers often fake or

spoof a phone number to make

it look like they are located

near a consumer or are calling

from a trusted organization.

Currently, the ban on that ap-

plies only to calls that start

within the U.S.

The rule change is unlikely

to immediately stem the

scourge of robocalls. It may,

however, help law enforcement

BYSARAHKROUSE

FCC Extends Spoofing Ban

To Calls From Outside U.S.

all viewpoints were welcome,

but “time and again, we see

actions that contradict free

and open expression.”

Mr. Cernekee’s allegations

also highlight Google’s mount-

ing struggle to rein in its frac-

tious workplace, which has

long been a place of debate

over free expression. The com-

pany historically has tolerated,

and even encouraged, argu-

ment on hot-button issues.

Google has long promoted

an open corporate culture, in-

cluding message boards in

which employees across the

world share opinions on both

business and personal topics.

Recently, though, it has

taken steps to put limits

around certain employee be-

havior. Chief Legal Officer

Kent Walker has threatened to

fire workers poking around in-

side the company for informa-

tion on contentious topics like

Google’s cloud-computing rela-

tionship with the U.S. Defense

Department, people familiar

with the matter say. Mr.

Walker wrote to staff in May,

“more than ever, we need to

take good care of the informa-

tion we hold.”

In a July memo widely dis-

tributed to staff, Google said it

had contacted law enforce-

ment about an employee who

released unspecified confiden-

tial information externally.

The email reminded staffers to

flag suspected behavior to its

“Stop Leaks” team.

“Lively debate is a hallmark

of Google’s workplace culture,”

Ms. Kaiser said.

Google employees across

the political spectrum say ran-

cor has risen since the 2016

election. Some liberal staffers

say Google has retaliated

against them because of their

activism, which the company

denies.

In July, a white YouTube

employee, Christopher Cukor,

was filmed calling the police

on a black man he suspected

of breaking into his San Fran-

employee donations to candi-

dates in the 2018 elections

went to Democrats, says the

Center for Responsive Politics.

Before moving to the Bay

Area in 2015 to work on

Google’s laptop lines, Mr.

Cernekee says, the region’s

dominant liberalism struck

him as unreal.

Early on, he stood up for a

colleague who publicly sug-

gested that Google not con-

sider race or gender in hiring

decisions. “A bunch of people

jumped on him and started

cussing him out and calling

him names,” Mr. Cernekee

says. “And then his manager

showed up in the thread and

denounced him in public. I was

very disturbed by that.”

In other posts from 2015,

some of which were later cited

by the company in a warning

letter, he criticized a self-de-

scribed feminist colleague on

an internal message board,

suggesting she should be more

resilient to criticism. In an-

other thread, he suggested the

company add a clear state-

ment of banned opinions to

the employee handbook so

staffers would know where the

lines were drawn.

Conservative employees say

they’ve tried to raise concerns

about unfair treatment to top

Google executives at the com-

pany’s weekly all-hands meet-

ings, but their queries haven’t

made it through because ques-

tions must be voted up by a

large number of employees to

be heard.

Mr. Cernekee calls himself a

whistleblower and has filed

complaints with the National

Labor Relations Board. Several

were denied; the original is

pending. He’s submitted mate-

rials including a human re-

sources warning letter that

says he violated the “Respect

Each Other” section of the

company’s code of conduct.

Among the posts cited was

one in which he wrote that

“many Googlers strongly dis-

agree with Social Justice

theory and even more

Googlers are concerned about

the ‘internet mob’ shaming

and intimidation tactics em-

ployed in support of this

agenda.” A human resources

executive wrote: “Many

Googlers were offended by

your comments.”

The NLRB declined to com-

ment.

Mr. Cernekee says he has

spent more than $100,000 on

legalfees.Henowworksfor

another technology company.

“I very much regret joining

Google,” he says. “I figured it

wouldbeagoodplacetosee

intelligent arguments through.

It didn’t really turn out how I

expected.”

Kevin Cernekee, who describes himself as a mainstream Republican, said Google fired him last year for expressing his political views.

JASON HENRY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

cisco apartment building. Mr.

Cukor later apologized after it

turned out the man was visit-

ing a friend. Google owns You-

Tube. In the aftermath, some

Google and YouTube employ-

ees wrote on internal message

boards that Mr. Cukor’s pres-

ence made them feel unsafe,

and that they would refuse to

work with him, several people

familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Cukor wrote in a blog post

that his father had been mur-

dered by a trespasser outside

his home.

Last week, a senior Google

engineer, Gregory Coppola,

gave interviews to a pair of

conservative media outlets

and suggested the company

was politically biased toward

the left. Hours later, he re-

ceived a call from human re-

sources putting him on admin-

istrative leave, said a person

familiar with the matter.

A Chicago-area native, Mr.

Cernekee is in some ways the

prototypical Silicon Valley en-

gineer. He repairs old com-

puter equipment in his spare

time and bikes on weekends.

His political stances are

outliers. Some 95% of Google

On open message

boards, employees

can share opinions

on a range of topics.

conservative in famously lib-
eral Silicon Valley.
“Historically, there’s been a
lot of bullying at Google,” Mr.
Cernekee says. “There’s a big
political angle, and they treat
the two sides very differently.”
A Google spokeswoman,
Jenn Kaiser, declined to com-
ment on the specific incidents
described in this article in-
volving Mr. Cernekee and
other employees. “We enforce
our workplace policies without
regard to political viewpoint,”
Ms. Kaiser said in a statement.
Political bias in the technol-
ogy world is a headline topic
in Washington, where Republi-
cans are increasingly ramping
up heat on AlphabetInc.’s
Google and other tech plat-
forms over perceived bias
against conservatives.
House Minority Leader
Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) on
Thursday called Mr. Cerne-
kee’s allegations of political
bias troubling. In a statement,
Mr. McCarthy said Google
Chief Executive Sundar Pichai
had earlier assured him that

Continued from page B1

Google

Faces Bias

Claims