Overview
- Cookie stuffing is a practice where a company plants tracking cookies so it gets credit for sales it did not drive, and Bloomberg‑sourced documents show Phia’s extension reportedly performed that behavior on major retail sites.
- Internal Slack messages and code reviews reported by multiple outlets indicate Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni discussed an automated cookie drop as early as December 2025 and asked engineers to confirm it ran across partner sites.
- An internal dashboard reportedly labeled the control 'enable coupon auto drop,' which investigators say could be switched on and off and was treated inside the company as a monetization feature rather than an accidental bug.
- Phia disabled the disputed features on July 7, 2026, after which its reported daily revenue fell sharply and affiliate platform Impact.com suspended Phia’s network and reallocated commission funds.
- Phia says it removed the features, is reviewing transactions and issuing reversals to partners, and is hiring a head of compliance, while legal commentators note cookie stuffing can trigger civil suits and federal wire‑fraud exposures though no charges or lawsuits have been publicly filed.