Chris Greaves (who doesn’t even own a car) looks at the possibility of using weekly boycott targets in an attempt to force oil companies to lower the retail price of gasoline in Toronto:
Consider therefore a web site for the GTA which announced as the next boycott period approached that the new target was “Shell”.
Those drivers who subscribe to the mass-boycott idea would avoid buying gas at Shell and, being evangelical, would tell their friends and colleagues that “Shell” was the target this period.
The question is “Who picks the target?” and the answer is simple: torontogasprices already announces the highest and lowest price for gas in the GTA. Score +1 against that company with the highest gas price at a random time each day. Then pick the company with the highest score. Over a short period, the company with the highest prices would float to the top of the list and be ready for a boycott.
In order to avoid any hint of collusion and legal attack, the web site would be hosted as a private web site, a blog perhaps, with the views expressed being solely those of the individual. There can be no legal complaint against an individual blogging and/or tweeting a disarmingly simple statement “This week I am boycotting Shell”.
