New app Buycott uses barcodes to help consumers avoid supporting causes they disagree with Campaigns on the app target Monsanto, Koch Industries and George Soros, reflecting diverse perspectives. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/barcode-app-tracks-consumers-article-1.1344152#ixzz2TTpot6lp

The barcode’s secrets are now out of the bag, and Monsanto, George Soros, and the Koch brothers had better beware.

A new mobile app allows supermarket shoppers to scan barcodes to determine whether a product’s maker is morally in step with their values.

Dubbed Buycott, the app, which debuted earlier this month on Apple and Android platforms, is the brainchild of 26-year-old Los Angeles programmer Ivan Pardo.

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“When you use Buycott to scan a product, it will look up the product, determine what brand it belongs to, and figure out what company owns that brand (and who owns that company, ad infinitum),” a description of the product states on Buycott’s website. “ It will then cross-check the product owners against the companies and brands included in the campaigns you’ve joined, in order to tell you if the scanned product conflicts with one of your campaign commitments.”

The campaigns set up on the app include Avoid Koch Industries, which targets companies linked to the billionaire Koch brothers, who, the page’s description notes, have “spent $61.4 million fueling climate change denialism” since 1997.

Another campaign, Demand GMO Labeling, tells a user whether that particular item was made by a company that has opposed the labeling of genetically modified food.

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“This campaign starts with a list of all companies that donated more than $150,000 to oppose GMO labeling in California,” the campaign states. “For a company to be removed from the list, it must publicly commit to supporting mandatory GMO labeling on food.”

As the description for the Avoid George Soros Investments campaign makes clear, not every category is tailored to a liberal audience.

“This campaign will continue until [liberal activist] George Soros begins funding education programs focusing on the rights bestowed upon U.S. citizens by the U.S. Constitution and renounces the ‘Obama’ administration’s attempts to cover up the Benghazi terrorist attacks to benefit the Obama re-election campaign, the targeting of conservative groups including the Tea Party by the IRS, the DOJ’s tapping of journalists’ phones, and the addition of over $6.12 billion in U.S. debt during the ‘Obama’ administration.”

From gay rights to economic justice and animal welfare, Buycott users can program their phones to give them information on a potentially unlimited number of causes and campaigns.

“I don’t want to push any single point of view with the app,” Pardo told Forbes. “For me, it was critical to allow users to create campaigns because I don’t think it’s Buycott’s role to tell people what to buy. We simply want to provide a platform that empowers consumers to make well-informed purchasing decisions.”

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