Phia — the buzzy shopping app co-founded by Bill Gates' daughter, Phoebe — is claiming credit for online sales it didn't actually drive, a Bloomberg investigation found.

Phia, an advertising startup co-founded by Phoebe Gates, daughter of billionaire Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, bills itself as a "personal shopping assistant" that helps users find the lowest prices on a broad range of clothes and fashion accessories. Download the Phia tool onto a web browser, use it while shopping and - voila - the so-called extension can quickly find discount codes for products. Businesses like these, known in industry parlance as affiliate marketing programs, typically collect a commission from retailers that make the resulting sale. So, the Phia app is one of those personal assistants where it's like a browser on your website and when you put it up there, it helps you with online shopping and it helps and all of that good stuff. But according to Ben Edelman, an independent researcher and consultant who studies affiliate marketing, as well as Capital One Shopping, which makes a competing browser extension, Phia is claiming credit for online sales it didn't actually drive, in violation of many digital platforms' policies. Bloomberg tested the Phia mobile browser extension across more than 50 websites and found that during the checkout process, Phia opened a background tab without user interaction and injected its own referral code that overrode legitimate referrals from other publishers. These findings were consistent with Capital One Shopping and Edelman's independent testing and code review. When people were using the extension like a regular app, observing how it communicates with other own servers. They open a background tab without user interaction and injected its own referral codes. The overall legitimate referrals from other publishers. Like, that is just such a scam, bro. You can't be scamming at this level. Capital One Shopping, a discount shopping tool previously known as Wikibuy that was bought by Capital One Financial Corp. in 2018, highlighted similar findings from its own testing in an email sent Tuesday to retailers that raised concerns about what it said were Phia's fake clicks or "cookie stuffing." It attached videos that it said showed Phia's extension silently opening a background tab linking the retailer's website with its own affiliate code to ensure its cookie was set. "Publishers like us are having material revenue taken," said the email, which was seen by Bloomberg. "And advertisers like you are losing money to fake clicks." Capital One confirmed the authenticity of the email to Bloomberg, but declined to comment on Phia. "We will not comment on any technical or concerning practices identified within the marketing ecosystem," said. Swapping out the referral may lead to retailers paying Phia unnecessary fees, or Phia taking commissions meant for other publishers and advertisers. A common policy found in terms of service across the affiliate advertising industry dictates that Phia should "stand down" if another referral code is already in use by a consumer. Bloomberg began to investigate Phia after a person familiar with the company's technology provided Bloomberg with information suggesting the browser extension was misattributing sales. The person asked not to be identified over fear of retribution. Bloomberg subsequently shared its results and methodology with Edelman and two other ad tech experts. Edelman ran his own tests independently of the other ad tech experts reviewed Bloomberg and confirmed the soundness of the methodology. Well, you might be thinking, why is this a big deal? Out the referral codes, charging unnecessary fees. And then number two, the people who that affiliate sale, they're not getting it. What annoys me about this is it's like you're Phoebe Gates. Like, obviously you didn't personally do this. But your company should just know that things like this shouldn't happen, like it's such a bad look for the brand and you overall, you already have a massive head start, you know? Right? Fraud? Really? Doing? Like, you stealing from the little affiliate of all the people who make business space, are, bottom. Money. What are we is just nasty.