Neha Patil (Editor)

Buycott.com

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Trading name
  
Buycott Inc.

Key people
  
Maceo Martinez

Founder
  
Ivan Pardo

Website
  
buycott.com

Industry
  
Technology, social activism

Products
  
Consumer advocacy software

Buycott.com is an Internet-based platform and smart-phone application that reads the Universal Product Codes (UPC) barcode on a product, and suggests whether a consumer should buy or avoid that product based on how well it aligns with the consumer's values and principles. The consumer joins to various Buycott campaigns to indicate their support or their opposition to various issues and topics. The app prevents them from purchasing from corporate entities - and their affiliates - that endorse policies which conflict with those campaigns. The consumer can thus "vote with their wallet", and opt to purchase a competing product, or forgoing the purchase altogether.

Buycott.com was launched to encourage Corporate Social Responsibility, prior to the point of purchase, and raise awareness that consumer purchases have real-world consequences. The app has a rich database behind the web interface, and uses over 20 million UPC tags as unique product identifiers. Buycott.com also queries consumer activists for scanned product information when the database is missing product descriptions or other information, each campaign's database relevancy and success is dependent upon the membership's participation. As of March 2015, the largest activist campaign is Demand GMO Labeling, a group of more than 176,000 activists, that primarily targets firms who donated funds towards the defeat California's Proposition 39. Proposition 39 would have required the labeling of genetically modified foods.

References

Buycott.com Wikipedia