Bill Gates’ daughter Phoebe’s app accused of ‘cookie stuffing’

Bill Gates’ daughter, Phoebe Gates, is facing scrutiny over allegations that her shopping app, Phia, took credit for sales it did not actually generate, with a new report claiming she and co-founder Sophia Kianni knew about the practice months before it was publicly addressed.

According to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg, Gates and Kianni were allegedly aware of the issue as early as December and discussed internal Slack messages concerning the practice.

Phia, a price-comparison and e-commerce app, uses a browser extension designed to help shoppers find discount codes while completing purchases. The company earns commissions from participating retailers when purchases are attributed to the app.

However, the alleged problem involved the extension reporting that Phia had generated sales even when shoppers had not used the app to make their purchases. Bloomberg reported that the practice involved “cookie stuffing”, in which a web-tracking cookie was allegedly placed during the checkout process so that purchases could be attributed to Phia.

The allegations contrast with a statement a Phia spokesperson gave in July, when the company said it had only become aware of the “misattributions” within the previous 24 hours. “As soon as we were notified, our team worked overnight to identify, mitigate, and has since resolved the issue,” the spokesperson said at the time.

Phia has since said that any features responsible for the misattributions were removed on July 7. The company also said it was working to reverse affected transactions with brand partners and was hiring a head of compliance to prevent similar problems in the future. However, the company did not address the allegation that Gates and Kianni had been aware of the practice before July.

An alleged Slack message from a Phia data scientist dated July 7 reportedly estimated that cookie stuffing accounted for about 51 per cent of the sales Phia claimed credit for during June. The allegations have raised questions about the company’s sales-attribution practices and the extent to which its founders were aware of the issue before it was publicly disclosed.