Abercrombie & Fitch Shuts Down Fake Sale Sites Selling Those Racist Pants

by Julia Rubin | 10:04 am, March 23rd, 2012

Yesterday the blogosphere was abuzz with news of fake Abercrombie & Fitch sale sites selling “N****r Brown” pants. Through a bit of internet detective work, we surmised that most of the sites were registered to users in China and that the proliferation of the pants across different sites was a product of web scraping. Now A&F has responded.

A receptionist at the company’s headquarters read the following statement signed by A&F vice president of legal David Cupps to WWD:

“The offensive Web site is obviously not Abercrombie & Fitch’s. It is the work of a pirate, almost certainly offshore, seeking to trade on A&F’s reputation. This matter has just come to A&F’s attention, and we have already started the necessary processes to have the site closed.”

Additionally, a rep told TMZ: “We do not condone racist language. This is a counterfeit website and we have initiated legal proceedings to shut it down.” Many of the sites have indeed been shuttered, while others have changed the name of the product. Some — like abercrombiefitchcool.com — have yet to be touched at the time this post was published.

As for how the item name came to be in the first place, Gawker posits a bad Chinese translation program is to blame.

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Abercrombie and Fitch fake sale sites Racism