New Delhi, Aug. 13 -- Phoebe Gates, the 23-year-old daughter of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, is facing allegations of "cookie stuffing" at Phia, the shopping startup she co-founded - an alleged practice that lawyers say can attract a maximum penalty of 20 years in US federal prison, according to reports.

Phia, co-founded by Gates with fellow Stanford graduate Sophia Kianni, works as a browser extension that hunts for discount codes across online retailers. When a shopper picks one of its coupon codes at checkout, the software drops a "cookie" - a small tracking file - signalling to the retailer that Phia helped close the sale, earning it a commission. Cookie stuffing is when that file is planted even though the platform played no rol...