Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Want to boycott goods with Monsanto content or Koch Bros. brands? There's a barcode-scanning app for that!

Related: Monsanto's dirty dozen: the company's 12 worst products.
 
Clare O'Connor of Forbes reports that there's a new app for Android and iPhones which lets you scan products to determine whether or not the parent corpora­tion is on any shit lists.
The app itself is the work of one Los Angeles-based 26-year-old freelance programmer, Ivan Pardo, who has devoted the last 16 months to Buycott...
     You can scan the barcode on any product and the free app will trace its ownership all the way to its top corporate parent company, including conglomerates like Koch Industries.

     Once you’ve scanned an item, Buycott will show you its corporate family tree on your phone screen. Scan a box of Splenda sweetener, for instance, and you’ll see its parent, McNeil Nutritionals, is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson JNJ +1.3%.
     Even more impressively, you can join user-created campaigns to boycott business practices that violate your principles rather than single companies. One of these campaigns, Demand GMO Labeling, will scan your box of cereal and tell you if it was made by one of the 36 corporations that donated more than $150,000 to oppose the mandatory labeling of genetically modified food...
There are also campaigns encouraging users to support brands whose companies have backed LGBT rights. Scan a bottle of Absolut vodka or a bag of Starbucks coffee beans and you'll discover that both corporations have come out for equal marriage.

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