To listen to this and other bonus episodes, buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at https://www.usermag.co or support my work on Patreon: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz.

Affiliate marketing is one of the biggest industries on the internet, and according to researcher Ben Edelman, one of Silicon Valley’s hottest AI startups may have been abusing it.

In this bonus episode of Power User I sat down with Edelman to break down what’s happening with Phia, the shopping startup co-founded by Phoebe Gates that has raised over $43 million from famed Silicon Valley investors like Kleiner Perkins Sheryl Sandberg, along with a slew of celebrities including Sydney Sweeney, Khloe Kardashian and Hailey Bieber.

We break down allegations that Phia’s browser extension secretly inserted affiliate tracking codes, how this compares to the Honey controversy, why retailers could have lost millions, and what this means for the future of AI-powered shopping.