Bloomberg Probe: Phia Accused of Hidden Cookie Drops Behind Sales Claims
Bloomberg reports that Phia, the shopping extension co-founded by Phoebe Gates, allegedly used a feature called 'enable coupon auto drop' and other practices to drop cookies and claim affiliate sales it didn’t drive; internal Slack messages imply Gates was aware and sought to ensure cookies dropped across websites, raising questions of compliance; Phia has denied wrongdoing and said the issue was a bug that was fixed, while noting revenue declined after a feature was disabled; the allegations come amid the startup’s high-profile funding and media attention.