Buycott.com
Buycott.com logo
|
|
| Buycott Inc. | |
| Industry | Technology, social activism |
| Founder | Ivan Pardo |
|
Key people
|
Maceo Martinez |
| Products | Consumer advocacy software |
| Website | buycott |
Buycott.com is an Internet-based, smart-phone application that reads Universal Product Codes (UPC) and displays corporate relationships to the consumer. The consumer subscribes to various Buycott campaigns in an effort to avoid purchasing from corporate entities, and their affiliates, that endorse policies which conflict with the consumer's social conscience. Thus, the consumer has the option of purchasing a competing product, or forgoing the purchase altogether.[1]
Buycott.com was launched to encourage Corporate Social Responsibility, prior to the point of purchase, and has a rich database behind the web interface; Buycott uses the UPC as the unique identifier.[2] 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.[3] As of March 2014, 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.[4]
