The North Carolina group's database may be the most enduring result of the pledge, as the food industry isn't easy to corral.

WSJ: Smaller Size? No Thanks to This Pledge

Bigger competitors often match prices of discount carriers like Virgin America, which had 20% of all passengers flying between JFK and LAX in the first quarter, according to consulting firm Oliver Wyman Group's PlaneStats database.

WSJ: Decoding Airline Ticket Costs

The truth is that, for the price of an intern with minimal spreadsheeting skills, any anti-fracking group could have created its own database from the information entered into the FracFocus system from the day it went live.

FORBES: Harvard's Frack Disclosure Study Earns an 'F'