# Bill Gates’s daughter faces 20-year jail term over cookie stuffing charge 2026-08-13T03:56:15+00:00 | World & Diplomacy | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 2 independent outlets Phoebe Gates's shopping startup Phia knew for at least seven months it was claiming commissions on sales it never drove, a Bloomberg investigation reports. The practice, called cookie stuffing, is treated as federal wire fraud in US courts and carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, says Ariel Givner, founder of Givner Law. Internal Slack messages showed founders discussing automated cookie-dropping features across retailers including Nike and Gap. After disabling the features in July, daily revenue fell from $80,000 to between $10,000 and $28,000. Phia told Bloomberg the features causing misattributions were removed on July 7 and says it is reviewing all transactions. The affiliate network Impact.com has suspended Phia and reallocated its commissions. The startup raised $30 million this year from backers including Hailey Bieber and Kris Jenner. ## Coverage - livemint.com - timesofindia.indiatimes.com This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above. Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources. Last updated 2026-09-27T06:12:08+00:00. Tags: Bill Gates, Bloomberg investigation, cookie stuffing, Phia startup, Phoebe Gates, wire fraud Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/cookie-stuffing-charge-could-land-bill-gates-daughter-in-prison-for-20-years/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/cookie-stuffing-charge-could-land-bill-gates-daughter-in-prison-for-20-years/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes. How this brief was made: an AI model read the reports linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. Stance labels are editorial classifications of how each outlet framed this story, assigned by the same model, not ratings of the outlets. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/