Promoted on TikTok, ‘No Thanks’ boycott app targets products tied to Israel

A pro-Palestinian app created to help consumers boycott Israeli products has gained traction on TikTok amid calls in Hebrew-language media for Google to ban it.

The free app, called “No Thanks,” was launched by Palestinian graduate student Ahmed Bashbash last November. Downloaded by 100,000 users within a month, the app enables consumers to scan product barcodes to determine if the item has connections to Israel.

By the start of April, “No Thanks” reported one million people had downloaded the app. Millions of users had viewed tikTok influencer videos promoting “No Thanks,” contributing to the app’s growth of 900,000 downloads in four months.

Cuttlefish1111,

Great effort and execution. Wonderful job. We also need one to identify Koch products and halt project 2025. They want to do terrible things.

evasive_chimpanzee,

There was an app called Buycott that lets you join “campaigns” of things you are either for or against, and when you scan something, it tells you which positive and which negative campaigns apply to that product and the company as a whole. Koch was on there. Seems like it may have been abandoned years ago, though.

ModernRisk, (edited )
@ModernRisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I have the app and the developer is a Palestinian himself. I genuinely hope it survives, the app helps a lot to boycot products that deal with Israel.

It’s unfortunate to see that so many products have deals with Israel. Some products are sadly impossible to avoid.

Here’s a screenshot about the app from within the app itself

Thi No Thanks Origin Story

The app on the AppStore (IOS): No Thanks App

EDIT: apologies, should’ve read your post in its entirety. You already mentioned the developer was a Palestinian.

Salix,

I find it interesting that it didn’t get review bombed on Apple.

On the Google Play Store, it’s pretty bad

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bashsof…

AllNewTypeFace,
@AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space avatar

Interesting how the App Store page doesn’t mention Israel or Palestine.

x4740N,
@x4740N@lemmy.world avatar

Is the app open source ?

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

I can’t find info on that so I am guessing at the moment it’s not. Though it seems to be more of a small volunteer project than a big group effort for now.

WamGams,

Hint: if an aoo is collecting your data and tracking you, as this app does, it is not open source.

This implies they are selling your data to brokers.

fawanen,

No it doesn’t.

WamGams,

It doesn’t collect your data or it isn’t selling that data?

Another user on this very thread pointed out the specific trackers being used by the app. Unless that person is lying about them collecting the data, they will almost certainly be selling it.

That’s the thing about data collection: its a lot of money to store. How are they funding the operation unless turning you into the product?

fawanen,

Look up specifically what Admob, Crashlytics, and Firebase analytics track.

That’s the thing about data collection: its a lot of money to store. How are they funding the operation unless turning you into the product?

Are you referring to data on users, or data on the products this app tracks? The app doesn’t need to store user data beyond what is required for it to function. Even if it stored such data, each user will only take up kilobytes to maybe a few megabytes because it’s just text data.

As for the data on the products, by far the largest files would be images. The rest is just text data.

Standard Google Cloud Storage is $0.20/GB per month. There’s no need for this app to store 16k+ photos, so the actual storage costs are negligible.

WamGams,

Let’s hope you are right. I personally think an app of this nature should be fully open source.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

It claims " no data collection" in the play store

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/701d8db2-f76e-4573-ad54-ce323f9d54bf.jpeg

WamGams,

That is great.

But I also think leftists should not be downloading protest apps directly through google, because they have that data.

We need to better expose protest movements to things like fdroid and how to combat the surveillance they carry in their pocket.

Short termz the app seems like a good thing, but we need to move away from google play long term.

Artemis,

Looks like it has Google AdMob, CrashLytics, and Firebase Analytics trackers…as well as FB Share according to Exodus. While I totally support the cause, this app is definitely tracking/profiting off of it’s users behind the scenes.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Sure, but is it open source?

fawanen,

He doesn’t know but still wanted to feel useful.

Artemis,

Day old account with tonnes of down votes and attacking people just trying to help…you are very clearly a troll. Also, I must be a guy since I’m commenting about tech? 🙄

lunarul,

How are crashlytics and firebase analytics profiting off of users? I cannot imagine not including those in an app you’re actually hoping to improve.

Artemis,

There are other privacy-respecting trackers that could be used for app improvement. At the end of the day, Google profits from the data collected here, and Lemmy has a big community of users looking to avoid this. Tangentially, Google also has massive contracts with the Israeli military that have recently come under fire in the news…just another reason to use different app-improvement trackers if the goal is to truly boycott/divest, etc.

fawanen,

I’m guessing you have no idea what those technologies do.

Google Admob is literally for serving ads.

Crashlytics is for monitoring crashes.

Firebase analytics is for monitoring firebase usage, which is required for things like push notifications when using firebase.

Try uploading an app to the Google Play store yourself before you spread FUD on matters you know nothing about.

Artemis,

I pointed out the trackers that are included in this app for full transparency…not everyone likes having Google and Facebook on their phone. The inclusion of these trackers also hint that the app isn’t open source, which was the initial question. I’m not sure any of this called for such an inflammatory response…

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Great app works very well. Users can submit barcodes and brands and the database is really significant by now. I tried it on a few articles and it correctly recognized each of them.

natural_motions,

I guess I’m curious if the user submitted products are vetted or not. Seems tough for one guy to keep up with that.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

It checks for the brand of the product and if it is on a boycott list it even provides a link with information why.

Most brands on the boycott list are major global brands such as Mondelez, Unliver, Pepsico etc. As their products have similar barcodes worldwide most of the brands check out between countries.

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