PUBLIC & GOVERNMENT DATA. Public and freely accessible data such as FEC, SEC, and USPTO filings offer insight into lobbying activity, how much top executives are paid, which companies own which brands, and more -- e.g. here is a campaign donation by a fast-food chain: http://bit.ly/ExampleFiling

INDUSTRY REPORTS. Universities, NGOs, and market researchers aggregate corporate data and solicit disclosures on issues like water usage, labor practices, and more -- e.g. here's deforestation risk data on hundreds of European manufacturers: http://bit.ly/ExampleIndustryData.

NEWS ARTICLES. Reputable and mainstream news sources provide important updates on the breaches, lawsuits, and scandals that plague the worlds biggest companies -- e.g. here's an exposé on a global manufacturer of packaged foods: http://bit.ly/ExampleNews

Impakt builds on the successes and challenges of earlier ethical purchasing platforms, and we're proud to offer something new and useful. Here are some of key lessons we learned from studying other platforms:

DoneGood: Instead of vetting a limited number of brands and always referring users to these same retailers, Impakt's mission is give users everywhere as much information as we can about products they interact with every day.

Moreover, most shoppers only discover some of the products they purchase by typing a query into the search bar. More commonly, shoppers navigate e-commerce marketplaces by leapfrogging from related product to related product, and Impakt follows that journey every step of the way.

BuyCott: Swiping UPC codes is hard. Pulling out your phone and scanning every product that goes into your (physical) shopping cart is a lot to ask of anyone. More importantly, more and more of our purchases are happening completely online.

Glia: It's great to connect people with brands they can believe in, but it's inconvenient (and a bit invasive) to ask every new user to fill out an extensive survey to profile their beliefs. Impakt has customizable Causes, but to get started, just download once and get right back to shopping.

Finally, Impakt does not brand companies as being flatly good or flatly bad. We connect you with Alerts about specific company practices that are relevant to your Causes. Our goal is to give every user the tools to make up their own mind.