August 12, 2026

Phoebe Gates’ Phia is under a brutal spotlight after Bloomberg reported internal Slack logs and code suggest the company knew about a cookie-dropping affiliate scheme for months, not “within the last 24 hours” as it claimed. The company said it was a bug, quickly fixed; the records point to a named feature flag, active from December to July, and to executives pushing its use. One internal estimate put the practice at roughly half of June gross merchandise value, while revenue allegedly cratered after the feature was turned off—the kind of blow that turns a neat startup story into a credibility crisis.

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