Court Ruling Says California Disabled Rights Law Applies to the Web
Court Ruling Says California Disabled Rights Law Applies to the Web
- Posted on 10/03/2007 at 06:45 AM by Sandra Clark
- Categories: Accessibility
One step forward for disability rights, another step backwards for Target. An interesting aspect of this ruling, besides the fact that it opens the door to a class action lawsuit, is the finding of the judge that Web sites such as target.com are required by California law to be accessible.
This takes it even further in some ways than the ADA. As far as I can tell (and I am no lawyer), the judge is saying that one state's disability laws can apply to all web sites that are available to that state. Keep in mind that Target is not a California based company. According to Hoovers, it is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. However, the case is being heard in San Francisco Federal court and was brought by a UC Berkley student. So this is starting to have major repercussions for any business that wants to do business in California. (And with a population of over 36 million or 12% of the United States Population, thats a lot of people to not want to do business with).
The story has been picked up by the Los Angeles Times .
A reprint of the press release can be found at Yahoo Business.
Again, this is another indicator that accessibility is going to become law for businesses as it is for government. Start thinking about it and preparing your business for it now.
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- Posted By Brian Kotek
- Posted On October 3, 2007 at 11:22 AM
I still don't understand why the onus is on application developers to bear all this burden. If someone would just create a screen reader that actually worked properly, this wouldn't even be an issue. More specifically, if the government had taken even 1% of the money they've wasted on 508 compliance and just built a free and useful screen reader that works, none of this would matter (and millions, maybe billions, of taxpayer dollars would have been saved).
The analogy between physical business and web site is a false one, and here's why. In the real world, for example, a store must have a ramp so those in wheelchairs can access it. However, if there was a free, instantly available add-on for wheelchairs that would let them hover up the stairs, it would make absolutely no sense to require the business to install a ramp. Obviously, this is impossible in the real world. But on the web it is completely possible. The "magic hoverlift" is a screen reader that works properly. It blows my mind that instead of doing this, they spend millions of dollars and limit innovation on the web.
I'm not saying building sites in an accessible way isn't a good thing. Just that this is really a limitation of the tools, not the sites. The focus shouldn't be on litigation and hampering creativity. It should be on building a tool that works properly.
http://www.briankotek.com/blog