Phoebe Gates, daughter of Bill Gates, faced criticism after her co-founded startup Phia was accused of using "fake clicks" to make money. Phia, an AI-powered fashion-tech shopping assistant launched last year with former Stanford roommate Sophie Kianni, allows users to scan retail and resale stores for lowest prices and discount codes. Following a Bloomberg investigation, independent testing from researcher Ben Edelman and Capital One Shopping revealed Phia's browser extension engaged in "cookie stuffing," quietly opening background tabs during checkout to inject its own referral codes and wrongfully claim affiliate commissions. Phia was temporarily suspended from Impact.com, a major affiliate network. Edelman stated, "The rules don't allow fake clicks, simulated clicks, imaginary clicks or hypothetical clicks." A Phia spokesperson issued a statement clarifying the misattributions were caused by a bug in a recent codebase release, and their engineering team worked to address it. Phia has raised $43.5 million in venture capital, with a market valuation of approximately $185 million.