AI Weekly Malaysia

Bloomberg reports that Phia, a shopping startup co-founded by Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, knowingly engaged in 'cookie stuffing'—taking affiliate commissions for purchases it didn't drive—as far back as December, contradicting earlier claims it was unaware. Leaked Slack messages show founders and engineers discussed the practice, which was a purposefully built feature, not a bug. Cookie stuffing reportedly made up a significant portion of Phia's sales, and daily revenue dropped sharply after the practice stopped.

Why: If you build anything involving affiliate links, referral tracking, or e-commerce attribution, this is a concrete example of how cookie stuffing can become a revenue dependency that's hard to unwind—and a legal liability. Affected retailers include Nike and Nordstrom, meaning the contracts you sign with affiliate marketplaces likely explicitly ban this practice. Don't treat attribution manipulation as a growth hack; the revenue drop after stopping shows how dangerous it is to build a business model on it.