adidas is under fire after posting a picture of its upcoming JS Roundhouse Mids on the adidas Originals Facebook page. JS is short for Jeremy Scott, the provocative designer who has had a longstanding association with adidas Originals, while the shoe is part of his upcoming Fall/Winter collection for the brand, which is slated for release in August.

Unlike the uproar over Nike's Black and Tan shoe back in March, it's not the colors or name that's offending, but the rubber shackles attached to them that remind some observers (such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson) of the ankle chains that imprisoned African American slaves. That the "adidas" name is also part of the "shackles" is raising hackles (and heckles).

Even so, the brand defended the design and the designer.

"The design of the JS Roundhouse Mid is nothing more than the designer Jeremy Scott's outrageous and unique take on fashion and has nothing to do with slavery," a spokesperson for the brand commented about the Facebook photo, which has been removed. "Jeremy Scott is renowned as a designer whose style is quirky and lighthearted ... Any suggestion that this is linked to slavery is untruthful."

Scott, meanwhile, has deflected criticism of the so-called "slavery sneaker" on Twitter. Update: The designer later tweeted a link to a picture of "My Pet Monster," a plush toy wearing "magic cuffs" released by American Greetings in 1986 that spawned a one-season ABC cartoon series, as the inspiration for the shoe.

Nevertheless, despite initially defending the designer, adidas is pulling the shoe, stating: "We apologize if people are offended by the design and we are withdrawing our plans to make them available in the marketplace."

See Scott's Fall/Winter 2012 adidas Originals collection that included the shoe (along with a close-up) below, and let us know what you think in the comments.Continue reading...

(Editor's note: The following has been updated with comment from Ikea.)

About 80 percent of furniture maker Ikea’s revenue comes from its stores in Europe — not the idea place you want to depend on your cash flow these days as the continent’s collective economy struggles to stay above water.

So Ikea is keeping itself busy expanding into – where else? – Asia, where it made $31.4 billion in its last fiscal year, which ended Aug. 31. Ikea had been opening one store a year in China but has now upgraded that to three, according to Bloomberg. And it is waiting to see what happens with legislation in India in hopes of entering that country’s retail space as well.

“Cautiously we are adding new markets,” Ikea CEO Mikael Ohlsson told Bloomberg. “We have big interest in opening in India. When the conditions are ripe in India we can start to prepare for an opening there.”Continue reading...

Animal-rights activists have been after chain restaurants for years to stop penning up their pigs and their work is finally paying off. Burger King in April made the promise to unpen the pigs in its supply chain and Wendy’s made a similar promise a month earlier. Now McDonald’s, oft-criticized by animal welfare groups as the world's largest user of beef, is following up on its ethical pledge for more humane treatment of the chicken and pigs of America.

While Burger King says it can do it by 2017, McDonald's (on the heels of its recent "back to the farm" campaign) says it will need at least until 2022 until it can be sure that all of its suppliers aren’t penning up the sows, according to the Chicago Tribune. “Sow confinement has been standard agricultural practice for decades, based on the reasoning that the pregnant animals become aggressive around food,” the newspaper notes. This, of course, has not won too much favor with animal-rights folks.Continue reading...

Greenpeace and Asia Pulp & Paper have been battling for years over the issue of brands using APP for packaging, as the eco-activists believe the company is one of many brands contributing to the deforestation of “critical habitats and last remaining biodiversity hotspots” by using what it sees as unsustainable packaging materials sourced by APP. 

Greenpeace's latest campaign against APP, via its global KFC protests, prompted the paper supplier to send us a rebuttal from Ian Lifshitz, Sustainability Manager for APP in the Americas.

“APP has been taking into account the critical issues raised by our international stakeholders, and we’ve announced important milestones in our business policies. Namely, on May 15, we announced the suspension of natural forest clearance in Indonesia, and that we will begin holding ourselves and our suppliers to the internationally-recognized high standards of HCVF (high conservation value forest)."Continue reading...

Greenpeace activists recently scaled the headquarters of the KFC headquarters building in Louisville, Kentucky to hang a giant banner with a Sumatran tiger saying: “KFC Stop Trashing My Home.” A second banner was deployed on the lake the KFC building, dubbed “the White House” due to its resemblance to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, overlooks, bearing a similar message.

“We're here today to expose KFC's secret recipe. KFC customers worldwide will be horrified to learn that the fast food giant is using rainforests to make its packaging,” said Greenpeace Forest Campaign Director, Rolf Skar, about the protest action, which has gone global including a protest stunt in China and London this week. “The decisions being made here at KFC HQ are fuelling the destruction of some of the world’s last remaining rainforests, driving climate change and pushing the Sumatran tiger closer to extinction.”Continue reading...

Facebook may feel it has addressed privacy time and time again during its brief history, including recently addressing concerns about app privacy with the launch of Timeline.

But on the eve of its historic $96 billion (up to $104 billion) initial public offering, when it is expected to sell shares on NASDAQ starting Friday, Chief Privacy Officer for Policy Erin Egan hosted a live event today concerning the latest changes to its privacy policy in response to an audit by the Irish government.Continue reading...

Today's "Google doodle" (one-day homepage logo twist) celebrates American graffiti-turned-mainstream artist Keith Haring, who would have been 54 today. Haring, who died of AIDS-related illnesses in 1990 at the age of 31, was also an outspoken activist who continues to inspire fashion, design and art, as seen in the recent pop-up homage to his iconic Pop Shop in New York, and the current Brooklyn Museum exhibition, which is up through July 8th.

The Village Voice is under fire over Backpage — not the classified-jammed back page of its iconic free city newspaper, but Backpage.com, the subsidiary of Villlage Voice Media which expands its lucrative classifieds biz, warts and all, to the web. And by warts, we mean venereal warts, because Backpage.com makes a big portion of its income from adult classifieds, which have been accused of enabling human trafficking.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has been on Backpage's back over the issue, which is near and dear to his heart. And now brands are protesting too.Continue reading...