Is that product ethical? Ask the app

In addition to letting us play Angry Birds anywhere, anytime, smartphone apps are turning out to have other uses as well. Among them, helping consumers decide a product’s ethics.

For example, last month, Greenpeace launched the Green Tissue Guide, an app that lets shoppers determine which paper towel, facial tissue and toilet paper brands are most sustainable.

READ: New app rates tissues' environmental bonafides

Now an app from the U.S. is going one step further. Buycott lets shoppers scan barcodes to track things like whether the company that made the product supports gay marriage or is against mandatory GMO labeling.

The app also lets users figure out which corporations own which brands and then blacklist corporations they do not wish to do business with.

So, for instance, a shopper who has trouble with the libertarian viewpoints of billionaires Charles and David Koch, might be told to avoid products made by Georgia Pacific, which the Kochs own.

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