Revisiting Barcode Replacement Satire

from the one-year-later dept

A little over a year ago there was a huge media frenzy over a site that let people view and print out barcodes. It was really just a database of barcodes, but the site presented a satirical commercial showing how you could use the site to "name your own price" and re-code any product to a price you preferred. Of course, actually doing the re-coding would be illegal. Running a database telling people how seems perfectly legal... unless you're lawyers at a big company like Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart and a number of other big companies forced the site to shut down, and the folks have now set up the site as a Wal-Mart spoof. John submitted a story about the whole mess one year later. It sounds like those involved didn't expect the level of backlash they got - especially from the press who labeled them as the thieves. Still, they've now got other plans up their sleeves for satirical projects.

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