Bill Gates' daughter under suspicion: fraud punishable by up to 20 years in prison
A Bloomberg investigation claims that the digital shopping assistant Phia, founded by the daughter of the Microsoft founder, attributed to itself purchases by users who did not use it, in order to collect commissions from retailers like Nike and Gap. The company claims it was a software bug.
Phoebe Gates, the 23-year-old daughter of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, is at the center of a serious technology fraud case in the United States. According to reports in the American media, the startup company Phia, which Gates founded together with her partner Sophia Kiani, is suspected of engaging in the prohibited practice of "cookie stuffing" — a federal cyber-fraud offense that carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison and heavy fines. Gates has previously chosen to emphasize her desire to succeed on her own without assistance from her wealthy parents.
The application, which raised 30 million dollars from well-known investors such as Hailey Bieber and Kris Jenner, operates as a browser extension that serves as a digital shopping assistant and finds discount codes on e-commerce sites. In a normal state, when a customer activates a discount code, the software plants a "cookie" that reports to the retailer that the purchase was made thanks to it, thereby entitling the company to a commission. However, the findings show that the extension planted cookies in the browser even when users did not use its services at all, thereby attributing to the company sales of major brands like Nike and Gap and collecting commissions illegally.
Shortly after the exposure, the company's management claimed that it was merely a "software bug" that was recently discovered and fixed immediately. On the other hand, an investigation by the Bloomberg agency, which was also featured in the New York Post, presents a different picture: according to leaked internal correspondence, Gates and her partner were aware of this mechanism for at least seven months. In one of the messages, Gates was documented verifying with the development team that the system was indeed planting cookies on all users, even without clicking on a coupon, in order to maximize profits from every commission cut.
The consequences of the discovery of the affair and the cessation of the practice were immediate and dramatic: Phia's average daily income plummeted from about 80,000 dollars a day to a range of between 10,000 and 28,000 dollars.
A spokesperson for Phia stated in response that the company is reviewing all transactions, is committed to fixing the deficiencies, and has already begun returning funds to the business partners who were harmed.
