Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni reportedly knew Phia was 'cookie stuffing' for months
The AI shopping startup's affiliate-fraud scandal is deepening, with new questions about who knew what, and when.
Written by OutOfToken AI
August 11, 2026 · 4 min read · Synthesized from reporting by TechCrunch Startups · How this works
Phia, the AI shopping browser extension co-founded by Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, is back in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Weeks after a Bloomberg investigation exposed the startup for allegedly claiming affiliate commissions it hadn't actually earned, new reporting suggests the company's leadership may have been aware of the practice long before it became public.
What 'cookie stuffing' actually means
Affiliate marketing runs on a simple premise: a company earns a commission only when it sends a shopper to a retailer and that shopper completes a purchase. Cookie stuffing breaks that rule by inserting an affiliate tracking code without a genuine referral click, letting a company collect credit — and cash — for sales it never influenced.
The Bloomberg report that started it
Bloomberg's investigation, published in July 2026, first accused Phia of engaging in exactly this behavior. The fallout was immediate: Phia was suspended from Impact.com, the affiliate network that connects retailers with marketing partners, according to TechCrunch's reporting on the story.
"Independent researchers reportedly confirmed that after Bloomberg contacted Phia, the extension stopped automatically claiming referral clicks — but whether that fix satisfies retailers and partners remains an open question."
Testing, and a quiet fix
According to Mashable, Bloomberg retested Phia's extension after flagging the issue to the company and found the automatic claiming behavior had stopped. That's a notable detail: it implies the fix came only after outside scrutiny, not before. It remains unclear from public reporting exactly when Phia's internal team first identified the problem internally, or how long it had been occurring before Bloomberg's story ran.
A high-profile launch now under a cloud
Phia launched in April 2025 as a real-time AI shopping assistant designed to help users compare prices and make faster purchasing decisions. By the end of its first year, the startup had reportedly surpassed 750,000 downloads and partnered with roughly 5,000 brands and resellers, according to Glossy — a trajectory that made it one of the more closely watched AI-native retail startups of 2025. That momentum is now colliding with questions about the integrity of its revenue model.
Phia has yet to offer a detailed public account of when it first became aware of the cookie-stuffing behavior, and neither Gates nor Kianni has issued an on-record statement addressing the timeline directly. Until that happens, the story will likely keep shifting from a technical glitch to a governance question — one that asks not just what went wrong, but who knew, and how long they sat on it.
Editorial Note
The research corroborates the core facts about the Bloomberg investigation, Phia's suspension from Impact.com, the cookie stuffing allegations, and the company's growth metrics. However, the headline's central claim that leadership 'knew' about the practice 'for months' is not supported by the provided research—the article itself admits uncertainty about internal timeline awareness. The verification score reflects strong corroboration of the investigation itself but weakness on the specific claim about leadership knowledge duration.
Claim Tracker
AI-assessed
Confirmed by TechCrunch (Source 2), Mashable (Source 4), and Inc (Source 6), all citing Bloomberg's July 2026 investigation into cookie stuffing
Confirmed by TechCrunch (Source 2): 'The report has sparked controversy and led to Phia's suspension'
Confirmed by Mashable (Source 4): 'Bloomberg retested the extension after contacting Phia and found that it had stopped automatically claiming the referral click'
Confirmed by Glossy (Source 1): 'In eight months, the platform has surpassed 750,000 downloads, partnered with 5,000 brands and resellers'
No source in the research provided explicitly confirms that leadership knew about the practice 'for months' before disclosure. The article acknowledges 'It remains unclear from public reporting exactly when Phia's internal team first identified the problem internally'
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