With all the stories circulating on the net about eBay's alleged "Black Budget" that was used to fund anything that eBay did not want on its books, the thought of paid message board and blog pumpers comes to mind here.
Back several years ago there were message board pumpers / stalkers that just plain wreaked havoc on anyone that posted something negative about eBay. One such board was the Yahoo eBay Finance discussion board where some pumpers even admitted they worked for eBay and were cleansing the board of the filth that were discrediting eBay and making Meg look bad.
Continues with visual documentation and more, comments open ...