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The National Federation of the Blind sued Target for a $6M settlement because their site was not accessible to blind users.

Not correct. Large corporations tend to be blind (no pun intended) to particular demands for equal treatment, especially when it comes to civil rights. Walmart springs to mind, but an established case is NFB v. Target.

Prior to 2006, Target's website looked nice (subjectively) but was coded in such a way that it could not be translated or converted to a non-visual format. According to this summary, "The lawsuit alleged that Target had not made the minimum changes necessary to its Web site to make the site compatible with screen access technology and to allow blind users to access the site to purchase products, redeem gift cards, find Target stores, and perform other functions available to sighted customers." I added the emphasis to point out that the lawsuit was not asking Target to completely redesign its website so that it was the same for sighted and non-sighted customers, or even to allow some random specialty interface; it was asking for minimum changes for compatibility with established accessibility technology.

Civil rights work that way -- you don't have to make everything the same, but you have to provide similar functionality in a way that is as transparent (non-separated) as possible. The technology and techniques to make accessible websites has existed since nearly the beginning of the public Web (screen readers, alt attribute for images, alternative content for embeds, etc.). There was really no excuse (except ignorance or malice, perhaps, neither of which is defensible in a civil rights case) why Target's website was inaccessible over a decade later.

Had you done some very cursory google checkings, you'd know that the previous poster was probably referring to this case: NFB vs. Target Inc.

Basically, Target was sued by the National Federation of the Blind, which claimed that Target was breaking the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) by not making their website accessible to the blind, like they're required to do in their stores. Of course, the lawsuit was filed in San Francisco, which gives the NFB a much better chance of winning it due to its liberal courts.

From the article: The suit charges that Target failed and refused to make its Web site (www.target.com) accessible to the blind and, therefore, violated the ADA as well as two California civil rights statutes: the California Unruh Civil Rights Act and the California Disabled Persons Act.

This has nothing to do with big vs. small vendor or market control mechanisms, and Target's site was not funded by tax dollars, so your little diatribe is worthless and misinformed. Thanks for playing though.

"Now here is the problem: where is the responsibility? Is it also Target's responsibilty to pay for the blind's computer access equipment? Do they have to provide them transport to and from the store, since they can't drive on their own? Does there need to be a guy with a megaphone standing on every Target billboard declaring the contents of the sign in an audible format?"

Nice straw man. You, along with many others, are ignoring (wilfully?) the fact that Target has had to explicitly decide to make their site inaccessible. Take a look at their site as it is right now; they've chosen to use images for functional links and they have rarely, if ever, included an alt attribute in the image element where all they would have needed to do was bloody-well duplicate the text already in the image in the alt attribute. They have taken a medium that's fundamentally accessible (i.e. one which, by virtue of being text-based, can be intelligently parsed by a screenreader), and intentionally or ignorantly rendered it inaccessible.

Not only are they morons for apparently not understanding accessibility concerns, they must also be pretty dim-witted about e-commerce if they're too dense to provide textual equivalents for the UI elements required to make purchases.

"It's not immediately evident what the way of reconciling disability with this new medium should be"

What is evident is that you're not well-informed enough to be commenting on this event; check items 25 through 34 of the complaint and get back to us. Basic compliance with the WAI Guidelines or Section 508's guidelines (though not required by law for private industry) would likely have prevented this ever becoming an issue for Target--as would simply running the cart application's code through the w3c validator and correcting the resulting errors...

Lucky for them I have a secret way of finding content on the internet.

• Computerworld
• National Federantion of the Blind (one of the plaintiffs)
• Disability Rights Advocates (the plaintiffs' lawyers

Hey Rob, can I get my editor's fee now?

yes exactly - doesn't explain what exactly they did to make their site so 'unaccessible'

Information related to the case is here, including, among other things, the judge's ruling and the original complaint. Those may go some way to addressing your questions.