President Donald Trump’s push to bring Greenland under U.S. control has triggered a backlash in Denmark, boosting user numbers for a U.S. product boycott app by 1,400%.
As Trump revived the idea of acquiring Greenland, Made O’Meter, available on iOS, Android, and desktop, joined the list of the most downloaded apps in Denmark, with an estimated 11,000 downloads across iOS and Android in January, according to mobile analytics and intelligence platform Appfigures.
For context, the Denmark iOS App Store receives about 200,000 downloads per day, Appfigure notes.
Made O’Meter allows users to scan everyday products from cotton swabs to cereal boxes and uses AI to identify whether the product is linked to a U.S. company. If the product is tied to the U.S., the app will tell you more details about the company that produced it and where it was manufactured. It will also suggest alternative products with no U.S. link.
The app’s programmer, Ian Rosenfeldt, said he saw a huge spike in users over the past several days, with users uploading just over 20,000 photos to the browser version of Made O’Meter, with similar upload numbers for the app’s iOS and Android versions, as Trump resurrected the issue of securing Greenland for the U.S. this week.
Trump seemed to back away from the brink of catastrophe in his Wednesday speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by saying he would not use military force to take Greenland. Still, he didn’t drop the idea entirely, insisting he was “seeking immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States.”
In the midst of this controversy, Rosenfeldt said he wasn’t surprised the app gained traction this week.
“[Danish citizens] love the American people, but we don’t like the way that the government is treating Europe and Denmark, and especially not when they’re threatening on stealing Greenland,” he told Fortune.
Rosenfeldt, who is also the cofounder of Copenhagen-based digital marketing agency InboundCPH, said he created Made O’Meter last March after joining a Facebook group dedicated to identifying and boycotting U.S. products. The app surged in popularity at the time, he said, as he promoted it in the Facebook group, but later user numbers fell off. It wasn’t until this week that interest once again exploded as it did before.
Part of the app’s increased popularity is that Rosenfeldt chose to make it free to use, despite the heavy costs associated with the tokens processed by the app’s AI. Users can donate through the app to support its operations.
After Trump revived his long-running push for increased U.S. control of Greenland at Davos this week, Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, responded. While the president touted a “framework” for a future deal on Greenland, he reportedly struck with NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, Nielsen insisted the country’s “sovereignty is a red line.” While Trump hinted that the deal with NATO involved U.S. mineral rights as well as his proposed Golden Dome missile defense system, he did not provide full details of the agreement, CNBC reported.
While Rosenfeldt doesn’t believe Trump will change his mind on the Greenland issue just because of the boycott on American products, he is still hopeful it will make an impact.
“I just think that if we make a choice to not buy too much American tech products and so forth, and be a bit less naive and think everything is just fine, then we will be better off,” he said.
