It's funny... the UX person in me was thinking it would be easier just to take a picture of your shopping cart and have it highlight the items you shouldn't purchase. Just based on packaging. Then I thought ... hey ... an even better idea would be to hold the phone up in front of the shelves and have all of the offending items X'd out.

Then I thought ... man ... all of this would be a LOT easier if Google Glass had a better camera! Maybe Apple will make a better pair of glasses and in the not too distant future we can just walk up the aisles and have all the products we wouldn't want to support X'd out for us.

Point is... in the future you will most likely not have to scan the bar code. The software will just put X'es over all of the products that are "bad" by some definition set by you. That would be a pretty interesting use of something like Glass I think.

Also I think avoiding products if you disagree with the company owners is laudable and I don't really get why you are responding with such snark.

I don't think it would be like excluding all the products that don't fit my world view, but excluding all the products from actors whom I think are doing severe damage to the environments and legislatures of the world's nations.

Maybe it's a bit of a reach, but the Coke/Pepsi vending machines here have water in them and that was how I figured out each company also had their own brand of bottled water they also sold (Aquafina for Pepsi and Desani for Coke).

Not water, but oddly, Dr. Pepper is bottled by Pespi here. In other parts of the United States, Coke or 7up bottles it.

I agree that it's good for people to support companies they believe in, but that takes introspection and investigation. This app promotes neither.

The Citizens United decision means the money you spend is used to influence the political process. It's part of what you're buying, so why not factor it in to your purchasing decision?

Because one hallmark of a civil society is the ability to have vigorous disagreements in the political sphere and yet continue to live and work together as a community.

I can't pick and choose if I want to pay for tanks but I can certainly not pay companies that are actively trying to hurt the people I love with my money.

Obviously its fabric will survive your boycott of Chick-fil-A, but letting the political bleed into all aspects of our lives is something I find intensely distasteful.

Why imply not funding things you object to as not being civilised? Makes no sense. Or is it just a justification for laziness?

I agree it becomes really silly beyond one or maybe two steps. IBM in the 1930s was about the limit of "second degree hate"; I'd still have been happy to mow the lawn of IBM employees back then. I probably would have had problems doing business with IBM directly if I'd known all the details. The only transactions I'd have done with nazis were sell side death transactions, i.e. real life Castle Wolfenstein.

The Koch brothers probably aren't going to change their behavior no matter how much boycotts cut into their bottom line. If you cut off all revenue to every business they have an interest in, and everyone in the world refused to send them another dime even by buying up their failing businesses at fire sale prices, they would still be richer in their cash holdings than most people ever dream of being. They'd continue to have more influence on world affairs than most small nations.

On the other hand, most large corporations are more interested in money than politics, and politics is just a side game. So a moderately successful boycott of a single or small number of products sends enough of a signal back to corporate headquarters to change their behavior. If Whirlygig sales drop 10% because of their policy on Foozles, they aren't going to wait for Fizzbuzz sales to follow, they're going to reverse course immediately.