eBay 2015 Annual Report Download - page 40

on May 13, 2008 alleging that we engaged in conduct designed to harm craigslist’s business while we negotiated
to become and while we were a minority shareholder in craigslist. craigslist’s allegations include that we
(i) misrepresented, concealed, suppressed and failed to disclose facts in order to induce craigslist to take
detrimental action; (ii) interfered with craigslist’s business operations; (iii) improperly disseminated and misused
confidential and proprietary information from craigslist that we received as a minority investor; (iv) infringed
and diluted craigslist’s trademark and trade name; and (v) breached duties owed to craigslist. The complaint
seeks significant compensatory and punitive damages, rescission and other relief. In addition, in September 2014,
craigslist filed an amended complaint alleging trade secret misappropriation and seeking new and additional
compensatory and punitive damages. The matter was settled in June 2015 and the lawsuit has been dismissed.
In March 2015, StubHub filed suit against Ticketmaster and the Golden State Warriors, alleging antitrust
and various state law violations arising out of the defendants’ restrictive ticketing practices, which include
prohibiting the resale of Warriors tickets on StubHub or any other non-Ticketmaster secondary exchange
(StubHub, Inc. v. Golden State Warriors, LLC et al, N.D. Cal. No. 3:15-cv-01436). StubHub filed a First
Amended Complaint on June 30, 2015. The defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint which
was granted in November 2015. StubHub is appealing this decision.
Regulatory Proceedings
In May 2014, we publicly announced that criminals were able to penetrate our network and steal certain
data, including user names, encrypted user passwords and other non-financial user data. Upon making this
announcement, we required all buyers and sellers on our platform to reset their passwords in order to login to
their account. In addition to making this public announcement, we proactively approached a number of
regulatory and governmental bodies, including those with the most direct supervisory authority over our data
privacy and data security programs, to specifically inform them of the incident and our actions to protect our
customers in response. Certain of those regulatory agencies have requested us to provide further, more detailed
information regarding the incident, and we believe that we have fully cooperated in all of those requests. To date,
we have not been informed by any regulatory authority of an intention to bring any enforcement action arising
from this incident; however, in the future we may be subject to fines or other regulatory action. In addition, in
July 2014, a putative class action lawsuit was filed against us for alleged violations and harm resulting from the
incident. The lawsuit was recently dismissed with leave to amend.
General Matters
Other third parties have from time to time claimed, and others may claim in the future, that we have
infringed their intellectual property rights. We are subject to patent disputes, and expect that we will increasingly
be subject to additional patent infringement claims involving various aspects of our business as our products and
services continue to expand in scope and complexity. Such claims may be brought directly or indirectly against
our companies and/or against our customers (who may be entitled to contractual indemnification under their
contracts with us), and we are subject to increased exposure to such claims as a result of our acquisitions and
divestitures and in cases where we are entering new lines of business. We have in the past been forced to litigate
such claims. We may also become more vulnerable to third-party claims as laws such as the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, the Lanham Act and the Communications Decency Act are interpreted by the courts, and as we
expand the scope of our business (both in terms of the range of products and services that we offer and our
geographical operations) and become subject to laws in jurisdictions where the underlying laws with respect to
the potential liability of online intermediaries like ourselves are either unclear or less favorable. We believe that
additional lawsuits alleging that we have violated patent, copyright or trademark laws will be filed against us.
Intellectual property claims, whether meritorious or not, are time consuming and costly to defend and resolve,
could require expensive changes in our methods of doing business or could require us to enter into costly royalty
or licensing agreements on unfavorable terms.
From time to time, we are involved in other disputes or regulatory inquiries that arise in the ordinary course
of business, including suits by our users (individually or as class actions) alleging, among other things, improper
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