Major scandal in the Gates family: Daughter exposed as a fraudster

The shopping app Phia, founded by Phoebe Gates, one of America's youngest entrepreneurs, is facing a major crisis in recent days due to allegations of irregularities in its affiliate marketing systems. It has been determined that this platform, which aims to offer users cheap shopping options and has spread rapidly around the world, uses fraudulent software that claims commissions for sales directed by online shoppers.

Independent investigations revealed that during the payment process, Phia automatically opens a new tab in the background and transfers the commissions of the publishers who actually drove the traffic to its own account. This method has been met with strong backlash from industry experts.

Tests conducted on more than 50 of the US's leading publishers showed that Phia uses a classic method known as "cookie stuffing," which involves disabling referral codes to generate unfair profit. This practice was clearly documented with video recordings prepared by the company Capital One Shopping. It is stated that this action causes financial damage not only to other publishers but also to many retailers who advertise.

Researcher Ben Edelman stated that in affiliate marketing commission systems, only clicks earned through genuine user referrals are subject to payment, and that simulated or automated clicks are against the rules, emphasizing that Phia has crossed this line.

IMPACT.COM TERMINATES PARTNERSHIP

Following the emergence of the events, Impact.com, one of the giants of the affiliate marketing industry, announced in a decision communicated to publishers registered on the platform that it has suspended all business processes with Phia. In the information provided by the company, it was stated that the investigation is being deepened and all measures are being taken to resolve the grievances of advertisers.

PHIA RESPONDS TO ACCUSATIONS

Following the growth of the allegations against it, a statement came from the Phia front. A company spokesperson claimed that what happened was caused by an accidental code update and was not an intentional act. The statement noted that the relevant code was added to the system in December and that the issue was completely resolved recently. Furthermore, in follow-up tests conducted by US media outlets on July 7, it was determined that Phia had stopped automatic referral insertion.

CRITICAL QUESTIONS REMAIN

Founded in 2025 under the leadership of 23-year-old Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, Phia quickly attracted the attention of major investors. Thanks to investments from venture funds Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures, as well as famous names such as Khloe Kardashian, Hailey Bieber, and former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, the application raised 43.5 million dollars in funding and reached 1.2 million users in one year.

However, this latest scandal is not the first time the company has faced a trust issue. In another security breach that emerged last year, it was discovered that the application was uploading screenshots along with the entire web history of users, including their bank account transactions and email contents, to its servers. At the time, the company defended the data collection as being for shopping site analysis, but as a result of increasing complaints, the data collection method was simplified.

Industry observers point out that Phia and similar applications should be subject to much stricter audits in terms of transparency and ethical rules in the rapidly growing online commerce environment.

News Source: 12punto