Now Reading: Cookie stuffing charge could land Bill Gates’ daughter in prison for 20 years
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Cookie stuffing charge could land Bill Gates’ daughter in prison for 20 years
Cookie stuffing charge could land Bill Gates’ daughter in prison for 20 years
Phoebe Gates, 23-year-old daughter of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, faces allegations that her shopping startup Phia engaged in 'cookie stuffing', a practice lawyers say US courts treat as federal wire fraud, carrying…
The Story in Brief
Phoebe Gates, 23-year-old daughter of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, faces allegations that her shopping startup Phia engaged in 'cookie stuffing', a practice lawyers say US courts treat as federal wire fraud, carrying a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Phia is a browser extension that finds discount codes and plants a tracking cookie to claim a commission when a shopper uses its coupon.
Bloomberg reports that Phia knew for at least seven months that it was claiming commissions on sales it never drove. Internal Slack messages show co-founder Gates worried about low Etsy commissions in December, asking if 'auto pop for cookie drop is live on ALL sites.' After disabling the features in July, average daily revenue dropped from $80,000 to between $10,000 and $28,000. Affiliate network Impact.com has suspended Phia and reallocated its commissions. Phia calls July's revenue drop a result of disabling most monetisation efforts and says it is reviewing every transaction.
The Indian Opinion
The temptation to frame this as a nepo-baby scandal is strong, but the facts point to something more systemic: a startup that allegedly built its revenue model on a practice lawyers call federal wire fraud. The toggle labelled 'enable coupon auto drop' was not a glitch, it was a feature. Phia says it has reversed all misattributed commissions and hired a compliance head. The real test will be whether Impact.com and other affiliates publish the audit results, so everyone can see who knew what and when.
Source: livemint.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
