Shoppers Use App To Boycott Israel In Grocery Store Aisles

When young California-based developer Ivan Pardo launched smartphone app Buycott last year, users at first seized upon its technology to avoid putting coins in the coffers of the conservative billionaire Koch brothers.

Everyday shoppers using iPhones or Android devices could scan the barcode of, say, Brawny paper towel or Dixie cups and trace the corporate ownership of both kitchen cupboard staples to Koch Industries , the conglomerate run by the politically active (and thereby controversial) industrialists Charles and David Koch.

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Today, more than a year since the app first gained ground, Buycott’s fastest-growing campaigns are those allowing shoppers to avoid products deemed to support Israel.

As the Israel-Gaza conflict has intensified in recent days, Buycott has seen a surge in users joining groups with names like ‘Avoid Israeli Settlement Products’ and ‘Long Live Palestine Boycott Israel.’

The latter was created in April by a British teenager, but floundered with a few hundred members through mid-July. It now counts over 220,000 shoppers as users, with its numbers climbing daily. By way of contrast, a user-created campaign to boycott Nestle for alleged human rights abuses has 57,000 members.

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/08/06/shoppers-use-app-to-boycott-israel-in-grocery-store-aisles/