Buycott - app

[James Henry]

Full review at:
_www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/buycott-review/

There’s no denying that large corporations have a wide-reaching and seemingly unavoidable impact on many parts of our lives, and even if your personal agenda doesn’t match up with that of a company, you still push forward their causes when you purchase their products. Being more socially responsible and spending your money on companies that aim to forward the causes you believe in, no matter what they are, is one of the best ways to be more influential without actually casting a vote or supporting a political candidate. Buycott aims to make it easier for you to be aware of where your money goes. In essence, it lets you vote with your wallet. Or it aims to, at least.

Buycott serves two separate but equally important functions: It informs you about the companies that are behind a given product, and it allows you to set causes you believe in to help you determine what to buy and what to avoid.

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Buycott is available for free on iOS and Android.

Another article at:
_www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2013/06/11/watch-forbes-test-buycott-app-on-anti-gmo-and-koch-products-in-supermarket-aisle/

Use Buycott on your iPhone or Android to scan the barcode on any product, and the free app will trace its ownership all the way to its top corporate parent company. These include headline-hogging conglomerates like Koch Industries (owned by conservative billionaires and liberal bogeymen Charles and David Koch) and Monsanto, the agricultural biotech giant that’s become a byword for “evil” among those opposed to genetically modified food.

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 (most of them household names like PepsiCo) that donated more than $150,000 to oppose the mandatory labeling of genetically modified food.

I do not have a smartphone to test it out, but I thought it was interesting and wanted to let the forum know it was out there. I have no vested interest in the product, but if it works I support its idea of bringing knowledge to what we buy.