Phia, shopping service founded by Bill Gates's daughter, accused of 'cookie stuffing,' taking affiliate credit on purchases it didn't earn

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/10/phia-accused-of-cookie-stuffing-taking-affiliate-credit-on-purchases-it-didnt-earn/

Microsoft nepobaby recreated Honey, complete with all its slimy privacy and linkjacking practices, just under new brand name

422 points · 47 comments · view on lemmy.world

47 Comments

const_void@lemmy.ml · 117 pts · 23d

I wouldn't expect less from the Epstein class

spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works · 105 pts · 23d (3 replies)

Once the issue was flagged to Phia, a spokesperson told Bloomberg that all necessary changes had been made to fix the issue.

This wasn't an "issue", nor have they "fixed" anything. Phia's code was specifically and deliberately designed to steal commissions. Now that they've been caught they'll will generously take out their malicious code and stop their thievery.

Slow clap...

Agent641@lemmy.world · 54 pts · 23d (1 reply)

Once the policeman pointed out the issue of John taking things from other people's houses without paying for them, John made nessecary changes to fix the issue.

Of course, he wasn't arrested for theft, nor were the previously taken items returned, because it was only a technical issue which was quickly resolved.

spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works · 25 pts · 23d

Can you imagine what would happen to an individual who engineered something like this? They'd be arrested and marched off in handcuffs.

Corporations are legal persons except when it comes to criminal activity. For that they're pretty much untouchable.

Geologist@lemmy.zip · 18 pts · 23d

they'll will generously take out their malicious code and stop their thievery.

I think you’re being too generous, they likely changed a flag to disable this temporarily, so they can hide from the current news cycle and attention, while also watching what happens with the Honey lawsuits, before turning this back on.

edgemaster72@lemmy.world · 72 pts · 23d (9 replies)

Couldn't even do theft in an original way, had to steal that too

crank0271@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 23d (7 replies)

Who do you think she learned that from?

a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 23d (5 replies)

Steve Jobs.

ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 22d (2 replies)

There's one other important lesson capitalists can learn from Steve Jobs: eat a lot of fruit instead of getting chemotherapy.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 22d

Also to the point out, the type of pancreatic cancer he had was a rare slow growing type, and treatable and not the Aggressive regular pancreatic cancer, which tends to be adenocarcioma, Jobs cancer was a pnet cancer which had potential to be cured if EXCISED early on, which is unusual, since the normal kinds kills you fast.

a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 22d

And ivermectin. Take lots daily for extra health.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 22d (1 reply)

her father.

a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 22d

Holy shit, Steve Jobs is her father?

Zagorath@quokk.au · 6 pts · 22d

Get real, would ya? You and I are both like guys who had this rich neighbor - Xerox - who left the door open all the time. And you go sneakin' in to steal a TV set. Only when you get there, you realize that I got there first. I got the loot, Steve! And you're yellin'? "That's not fair. I wanted to try to steal it first." You're too late.

— Bill Gates in the docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley

Maeve@kbin.earth · 6 pts · 23d

That's what capitalists and their bootlickers do. They only give credit in blame shifting.

luthis@lemmy.nz · 53 pts · 23d (15 replies)

She gets the guillotine too.

What the fuck is with rich people? It's like the richer they get, the more they want to lie, cheat, and steal to get more.

danielfm123@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 22d (1 reply)

I'm new here, I'm coming from reddit and I'm impressed you can say this and not get moderated :)

luthis@lemmy.nz · 3 pts · 21d

Welcome to Lemmy. The home of We've all run out of patience.

kraxla@piefed.social · -94 pts · 23d (12 replies)

Rich people lie, steal and cheat less than poor people.

thejml@sh.itjust.works · 54 pts · 23d (3 replies)

Citations Needed

sns@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 30 pts · 23d

He pulled it fresh out of his arse.

idiomaddict@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 23d (1 reply)

How many billionaires you know who got arrested for holding up a 7/11? Checkmate atheists

ernest314@lemmy.zip · 15 pts · 23d

the rich and poor alike are not allowed to sleep under bridges, steal bread, etc. ...

finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 43 pts · 23d

Lmao how's that boot taste?

Wage theft is consistently the single largest form of theft in the US, coming in at around $50 BILLION every year

zbyte64@awful.systems · 22 pts · 23d

How many poor people flew on the Lolita express?

Turns out the only poor people on that plane were the victims.

pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 16 pts · 23d

I think you mean rich people get caught less and/or face consequences less than poor people.

Blackfeathr@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 23d

Oh look! A class traitor! How does that boot taste? Or are you just deepthroating it?

luthis@lemmy.nz · 12 pts · 23d

I don't know about that, just in this example here, there would be hundreds of thefts per day from the website. A poor person could barely manage a fraction of that

ReptilianCleric@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 23d

Liar

wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 23d

If that were true then the rich would be poor and the poor would be rich...

Duamerthrax@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 22d

Rich people bribe legislators to make what they do no longer illegal. They lie constantly, but have their heads so far up their asses, they believe their own lies.

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 52 pts · 23d (1 reply)

Anyone who uses Brave browser: they got caught doing this shit

pivot_root@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 23d

There are also plenty of other good reasons to not support the company behind Brave. Unfortunately, however, I don't think that's going to change the mind of anyone who uses it.

MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip · 32 pts · 23d (3 replies)

Seeing as people get away with this shit all the time, this is what Multi-Account Containers on Firefox are for.

You can containerise each website or list of websites to a different tab group that can't share cookies with each other.

danielfm123@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 22d (2 replies)

I'm switched to Firefox because of that feature :) Google has its own room, what do you keep isolated

MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 22d

Social media, search engines, email, banking, shopping, news etc. I even have one for my self-hosted stuff.

The only real limitation I've had so far is that it doesn't have enough colours. I think there may be improvements on the way though as Mozilla did a survey about it a while ago which I completed.

You may want to keep some things in the same group such as Reddit and Youtube. Without cookies to keep you signed in on Youtube, embedded videos on Reddit often won't work.

Mulch5516@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 22d

besides keeping work separate, i have separate containers for amazon sites and separate ones for google for the little i use it for. it ships with a facebook one, or maybe thats a similar plugin.

Hund@feddit.nu · 12 pts · 22d

The Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Professorozone@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 23d

Apple... Tree. Not far.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 22d

like father, like daughter. steal other peoples product and name it yourself and sue to person so the PR doesnt get to you, also being ruthless.

Kevlar21@piefed.social · 5 pts · 23d

They’re monsters! Cookie monsters!

tremble5218@programming.dev · 3 pts · 23d

I wouldn't expect nor accept any less. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree of greed.

Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 23d
[ removed ]
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · -6 pts · 23d

My class consciousness when the oligarch is a hottie

panda_abyss@lemmy.ca · -20 pts · 23d (3 replies)

That’s wrong?

EVERYONE is doing this. Not that I support it, but I’m surprised it still works.

Email clients do it, Reddit does it, tons of apps, even different browsers. I think at one point Microsoft was doing it in Edge (or was that only discount code stuffing?). Affiliate link and cookie rewriting is everywhere.

ETA:

Phia would override the referral codes from other affiliates and instead inject its own, allowing it to take credit for and potentially receive a commission on a purchase it didn’t earn.

Just to be clear, if you post a link on Reddit, Reddit rewrites the it to add their own affiliate links. Microsoft does this. Chat apps do it. It’s not a secret.

I should add “that’s wrong” is tongue in cheek. Obviously it’s wrong. My point is the rubicon has been crossed so many times it’s fucking ridiculous.

krokodil2000@thelemmy.club · 2 pts · 22d (2 replies)

Do you have proof? Can you link to such posts on reddit?

panda_abyss@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 22d (1 reply)

They shipped this in 2016, literally a decade ago.

If you post a link, they will add their own referral code. They use JavaScript and hijack your link.

https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/4ldk0r/reddit_change_affiliate_links_on_reddit/

No idea why the downvotes here.

timochka@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 22d

No idea why the downvotes here.

I mean, someone up there just unironically called someone else a "class traitor".

This is not a crowd that's hanging straight on its hinges.