Oooh - Court Rules Websites Subject to ADA

Accessibility to the disabled online is important. I'm in favor of it. I recently found out, from a blind customer, that my shopping cart uses a "captcha" that doesn't have an audio alternative and therefore she was unable to complete her order.

I complained to 1shoppingcart, and their attitude was that if enough people "vote" for adding an audio alternative, they will add it.

I don't think disability access should be subject to a vote.

Anybody who is reading this who doesn't have a disability, please remember that anything can happen to you at any time, especially as you get older. Count your blessings and don't shut the door on the disabled.

Marcia Yudkin

Great point.

Who needs GM or Ford. Google will fill that spot

The worst type of limitation is the kind that perceives the world in a box of impossibilities you just have to live with.

Rashell

At the risk of sounding insensitive, which I am not, I can think of a few good reasons as to why not.

The first being that this is a backdoor method for the control politicians have been drooling over in anticipation, for years, concerning da net. Incrementalism is an incredibly real, incredibly serious and incredibly dangerous enemy when it comes to freedoms and liberties.

Want to achieve net censorship like the politburo of Red China but know you, as a politician of the Western World, cannot pull it off through the front door? Simple. Walk in the back door. Walk in the back door while adorning yourself with the title of 'Most Magnificent Savior of the Helpless, Downtrodden and Unfortunate' and easily establish the precedent of the threat of JAIL, or much, much worse if you do not do on your website what the courts, bureaucrats and politicians demand you to do.

Which is precisely what this ruling does. Do what the government tells you, as far as the construction and the content of your website, else they will KILL you.

And, no, that is absolutely not an over dramatization of the threat of death for non-compliance. It is reality. Do what they tell you or they shut you down. Refuse to be shut down or subvert their efforts and they come to arrest you. Refuse them the authority to arrest you and defend yourself, your personal liberties and freedoms, and they send in a para-military organization disguised as a civil police force (SWAT team) to put a bullet in your head.

Every single law on the books is backed by the authority of the government to put a bullet in your head if you refuse compliance and defend yourself from government forcing compliance upon you.

And that is not an overstatement - it is fact.

Umm, no thanks. I think I shall pass on that, thank you very much.

This is obviously an issue of lines, kindsvater, and where they are drawn. If these sites are so massively [pretty strong word counselor - makes it sound like these sites are threads which hold the fabric of society together versus the reality that a couple of the sites you mention being nothing more than entertainment sites] important to society, what is next? How 'bout the unfortunate disabled who, because of their disability, are in a situation where they cannot even afford a computer or internet connection? Do you demand Dell to issue them computers out of a sense of fairness - to able them to access the net which they are unable to do because of a lack of money? A lack of money that is directly tied to their disability? After all, this is now apparently an issue of sites that are 'massively important to society' according to you.

Is it the numbers that use these sites that determine its massive importance? If so, it would appear, then, that the SuperBowl is the most massively [your word], socially important television program in the US.

If not the numbers than what? And decide by who? Decided by government, that's who. By bureaucrats, politicians and political appointees in the form of judges.

From wiki:

In 2008, effective January 1, 2009, the ADAAA broadened the interpretations and added to the ADA examples of "major life activities" including, but not limited to, "caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working" as well as the operation of several specified "major bodily functions."

Let's take just one of those. Speaking. Well, if Facebook, Google and Netflix must be ADA compliant, so too must Skype. How the hell do you use Skype if you have a speaking disability?

Perhaps the courts rule that Skype must now provide some sort of vocalization software that allows one to skype while typing? Or, at least skype might have to WASTE millions of dollars on a legal team because a lawyer somewhere decide to sue skype under the ADA while pointing to this horrible, horrible legal precedent that has just been set.

I am not insensitive guys and gals. I am not making light of people's disabilities that hamper their ability to access things that those without disabilities have no problem accessing.

Neither am I insnesitive of the periously slippery slope this forces Internet Freedom to walk down.

All of this governmental demanded fair access won't mean diddly squat if, in the end, what the disabled person is accessing is a

GOVERNMENT CENSORED INTERNET

Will it?

Which is precisely the road rulings like this have us walking down. Incrementalism. It won't happen over night, but just give it time.

Sweet, I wanna be just like China or the former Soviet Union.

I understand people's sentiment and the benefits some look to achieve. It is not those I criticize. The problem is that the negative effects outweigh the benefits of rulings like this in my far from humble opinion. The trickle down effect is enormous and continues for years after rulings like this. Want to ensure Google and Facebook own da net and do not have to worry about upstarts dethroning them? Simple. Pass a whole bunch of regulations that make the entrance of any future competition not viable due to the financial costs of compliance with governmental regulations.

This is a power consolidation, by government, over the internet. Nothing more, nothing less. Don't kid yourself due to being a compassionate human (which I am) and wanting to help those less fortunate than yourself (which I do).

I am trained in Swift Water Rescue from my years as a white water raft guide. The first rule is simple: Do not attempt a rescue that puts yourself at risk of also needing to be rescued, no matter how dire the situation. This is because if you do, the next rescuer now has two people to try to rescue.

In this case, through compassion, do not try to help the disabled access da net easier if the net result is reduced access and freedom for the both of you in the end. That is what this ruling and those that support it are doing - jumping in the river to try to save a life with the inevitable and foreseeable conclusion of both of you being stuck in the middle of a violent rapid needing to be rescued by someone else.

These are noble issues to want to help people with - just make sure you don't shoot yourself in the foot while doing so.

Keep the damn government the hell off of the net. The only thing their increased presence will do is ensure the acceleration of the demise of freedom, both online and off.

What's your source for the $800 Billion number?

My daughter is friends with someone who is blind and he has no problems reading
web pages. I'm not sure exactly how it's done but he has some kind of a reader
on his device that connects to the Internet, whatever it is. Sorry, don't have
any details about what he's using, but he manages fine.

So the technology for the visual impaired is there. How expensive it is, I don't
know, but it's easily solved barring an enormous expense.

As for closed captioning, I guess when you make your marketing videos, you
can include this. Yes, it will take a little more time but it would be a nice thing
to do and certainly put you in a better light than all those marketers who give
the industry a bad name.

It will be interesting to see where this goes as far as legislation.