Boycotting SOPA Supporters? There’s an App for That

If you refuse to support SOPA — like Google, Al Gore, Paul Ryan and many Internet companies — a new Android app called wants to help you take the next step and become a SOPA boycotter.

The free App, Boycott SOPA, scans products’ labels to determine whether they are made by or associated with a SOPA-supporting brand. A product returns a “bad item” alert if it is made by one of 873 SOPA-supporting brands. College juniors Chris Thompson and Chris Doranti, students at the University of British Columbia, compiled the list from media reports and Reddit links.

[More from Mashable: Paul Ryan, Target of Reddit Campaign, Won’t Support SOPA]

SOPA, if passed, would give the U.S. federal government power to disable a website it found to be in violation of copyright law.

The app’s “bad companies” list includes subsidiaries and parent companies of supporting brands. Coca-Cola, for instance, made the list through SOPA-supporter L’Oreal, which is owned in part by Coke’s Nestea partner, Nestle.

[More from Mashable: Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA]

It does not include products such as movies and music, however. The heavy hitters of the entertainment industry are SOPA’s most vocal supporters.

Doranti tells Mashable he’s aware the list isn’t exhaustive. “That’s why we include a disclaimer,” he says.

The app has worked well enough to hit a chord with Android users, however. Doranti says that since launching Boycott SOPA on Friday evening, more than 5,000 users have scanned more than 15,000 items.

Eventually, the app’s creators hope to make a version that would also identify offending items in other boycotts. They started with SOPA, says Doranti, since “we thought it would be a cool programming project … we’re connoisseurs of the Internet, and SOPA is going to screw the Internet up.”

They are currently taking donations for “webhosting, pizza and beer.”

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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