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Phia, Bill Gates's Daughter's AI Shopping App, Had Its Account Suspended After Being Found Using Affiliate Code Impersonation Techniques to Falsely Claim Commissions

Phia, the application co-founded by Phoebe Gates, was suspended from a major affiliate platform following reports that the app secretly replaced codes to claim commission shares from sales it did not generate.

Phia, an AI-powered shopping recommendation application launched this spring and co-founded by Phoebe Gates (Bill Gates's daughter) and Sophia Kianni, is facing significant ethical allegations after being suspended from Impact.com, a leading affiliate marketing platform. This suspension stems from the discovery of behavior deemed deceptive for claiming commissions.

An investigation by Bloomberg, corroborated by multiple sources, revealed that Phia's browser extension engaged in what's known as "cookie stuffing." When users visited online merchant websites, whether directly or via another affiliate's link (such as Wirecutter), Phia's extension would quietly open a new tab in the background. It would then impersonate and replace the original affiliate code with its own during the checkout process, enabling Phia to receive credit and commissions for purchases it did not originate.

This behavior was detected by Ben Edelman, an independent researcher specializing in affiliate marketing, in collaboration with Capital One Shopping, a competitor in the shopping browser extension market. They indicated that Phia's actions violated the policies of several digital platforms. Subsequently, Impact.com confirmed Phia's account suspension, stating that the browser extension's behavior was inconsistent with platform policies.

A spokesperson for Phia acknowledged the problem, clarifying that it was a "misattribution" caused by a codebase error affecting some users, and confirmed that the company had implemented a fix. Bloomberg conducted a re-test on July 7, finding that the automatic click-claiming behavior had ceased.