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ADA Doesn't Apply to Web
djmoore writes "A federal judge has ruled that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) does not apply to the Web. U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz dismissed with prejudice a suit demanding that Southwest Airlines make its website more accessible to the blind, saying that the suit would create new rights for the disabled without setting appropriate standards. Judge Seitz also rejected plaintiffs' claim that the Web is a 'place of exhibition, display, and a sales establishment,' one of the twelve categories covered by the ADA, on the grounds that the law only covers physical places." Our original article has more details.
In my opinion, web design which makes a site inaccessible to impaired people is rude, discourteous, and even odious. It's not like disabled don't have enough problems. If you can't view it in Lynx, you're a bastard for writing it.
But what do I know. I'm just looking for anonymous gay sex.
If you use fixed font size tags, this won't change a thing in the browser. Its akin to assuming the table will stretch and shrink when you tag it with a fixed height and width. It s just not gonna...
"Goodness, how did you people live long enough to invent tools?" -Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher)
When its talking out of its ass.
I think the area of online jurisdiction is going to be a legal gold mine of study in the near future. What with seemingly conflicting case law this is the stuff that a law journal would kill for.
Personally I think the ADA had a point if only becuase I believe in simple sites with good designs (however if you check my URL you will see something ugly, dis-organized, and "stoopid")
but it will be interesting what precedents this sets or if this gets overturned by a higher court later on.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Thats like filing a suit against Ford for not making their cars drivable for the blind.....
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
Ummm...
None of that matters if you are BLIND.
There is no reason Southwest could not make their website blind-accessible.
1. graphical buttons should have names (you know, the things that pop up when you hover your mouse over a graphic) so the blind can tell, w/ a text reader, what the button is supposed to do.
2. people put up "text only"/"low bandwidth" versions of their pages up all the time. It is not difficult.
In short, southwest doesn't want to be assed to hire competent frontpage monkeys.
While I'm glad the court didn't make a blanket judgement compelling businesses to maintain dual website versions, we DO need to consider ways in which to make the web more accessable to the disabled in order to more completely fulfill its promise. Kudos to the judge for making this decision though. Another heavy handed mandate was not what is needed for this problem.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The best analogy I can think of is a building with both stairs and a ramp to access it. If this lawsuit was successful, it would be like compelling the owner of said building to make the stairs accessable to disabled people when there is a perfectly good ramp. Why should Southwest have to change their website when there is a perfectly good phone number?
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Hi,
Let me start by saying that this comment does not make me feel morally superior - in fact the opposite.
The truth of the matter, is that there are multiple considerations (ignoring the specifics of the law for now).
1. The cost to existing and new websites would be extremely high to implement ADA standards. In addition, this could easily shut-down smaller businesses (i.e. those akin to yahoo stores etc...) and those serving small niche markets. A good example of this was a small Australian site selling serialR/C Servo controllers for less than 50% of the cheapest US-made part.
2. The web is not a physical space. I agree with this one also. While I really, really am sympathetic to the disabled, and wish to help-out whenever possible, at what point does the ADA/public-regulated support end? Should highways have bumper-car lanes for those with poor eyesight? Should the stock market have a slow motion exchange for those who need more time to think?
I would support a federally funded (not run) program to provide tools making it easier to design/implement/test sites for accessibility, but c'mon folks - we can't even get HTML compliant browsers...
what do you think would happen if the feds mandated a HTML-ADA spec???
The web isn't about pretty graphics and groovy flash movies, it's about sharing information, this is very easy to do to even for the blind. But, few go through the extra effort to do so.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
My lawyer friend mentioned billboards.
If this had made it through, everyone that displayed *anything*, *anyway* would be liable.
If you are on the radio, you must make a visual display for the deaf.
If you display a sign on the front of your store advertising a special, or even own a billboard on the side of the highway, you must accomodate the blind.
The list of possible extremes is endless.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Either this goes to the Supreme Court and gets fixed, or we have to take it upon ourselves.
Being a web designer, my main goal is to get my work "seen" by as many people as possible. This includes anyone with a disability, as they're people, too. I say bad form. The ADA should apply to ALL situations, allowing ALL people to do whatever they can within any given limitation. If software exists to help a blind person "view" a website via audible text playback, then they should not be singled out like this.
Web sites already cater to the hearing impaired (duh), but does the ability to see entitle them to more? People with vision problems (blindness or otherwise) should be granted the ability to "view" whatever site they choose, be it with a text reader or otherwise. This decision will make those with disabilities that render Internet use all but impossible out to be second class citizens again, which is why the ADA was enacted.
If anything, we're going to see a whole mess of discrimination lawsuits come out of this. And we all know what kind of chaos can ensue when someone files a lawsuit. If you're in charge of web content, I'm urging you to ignore this court decision and go the extra mile for people with disabilities. If you do, at least one person out there will certainly appreciate the extra effort, and you'll avoid a costly lawsuit in the process (aka CYA)...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
sorry but it is poor design to ignore those that are disabled.. and it is very VERY simple to make a text only version of the site for them. It's too bad that this judge was either very dim-witted or bought off by a large industry player to ignore the basic rights of a disabled part of society.
if a store or even a private club doesnt have ramps or handicap access they are swarmed upon by the bees that are the ADA... but when it comes to accessability via electronic means it doesn't?
heck most of these places are required to have TTY phones and operators to handle calls from the deaf, why the decision to ignore the blind?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Go ahead and do what you please with your personal web site. Nobody's telling you what to do.
But if you are offering a public service, you are subject to the laws that govern such matters.
Slashdot is, so far as I can see, designed accessably. It can easily be run through a text->voice synthesizer, frame use is minimal, styles are minimal, graphics can be turned off completely without rendering the site unusable (which is in fact what I do.)
You know, you have to go through an awful amount of effort to create a website that isn't accessable. The irony being that most "web applications" have gone through exactly that effort, to create user interfaces that conform to corporate stylist ideals rather than end user functionality.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
If you use fixed font size tags, this won't change a thing in the browser.
Thankfully, given the number of idiot webmasturbators that commit this stupidity, this isn't quite true. Gecko-based browsers (Mozilla, Galeon) will resize any text, even if the idiot that composed the webpage specified a fixed font size.
Still not much help for the totally blind, however. It seems that what was asked for (alt text and a way to skip nav bars) was not that bad. Now that they've won the suit, Southwest should consider doing it anyway as a gesture of good will.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Funny, I thought copyright functioned the same way regardless of online/offline. Ie, if its copywritten, dont copy it. If its not, feel free. The DMCA stipulates how *people* are supposed to function in cyberspace with respect to copyright. (Or not function, as is the case.)
Its a very important distinction, which is why I'm going all off-topic here.
That said, I personally agree with legislation to mandate or regulate accessibility online.
The DMCA protects the haves, which is why we didn't need that legislation.
This accessibility legislation would help the have-nots, which is the only reasonable excuse for additional legislation (ie, to help those that actually need it as opposed to want it.)
"Old man yells at systemd"
pdf makes documents printable, which is what the government wants, since printed documents are the ones that are best as far as law is concerned. A pdf document always prints the same. HTML documents almest never print the same.
I agree with your opinion of flash, though. It is pretty lame.
Sharing information is the _only_ thing the web is about. It's all just 1s and 0s. If you're not doing any sharing you must be looking at a black screen, however seeing as how you seem to be reading Slashdot and sharing your opinion with us, i rather doubt that's the case.
Sure, a lot of places put a price on the sharing of information, either monetary or social, but once the price is paid sharing commences. Every pixel you look at and every byte you send out is information being shared. When you're not sharing information you're not using the web, you're just sitting there doing nothing.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Why must we have a new law every time a new technology comes along? Wouldn't common sense be to use existing laws to govern new things, in the spirit of the old law? We have so many laws, governing the minutia of everyday life, that no person could possibly be expected to know or follow every one. What we need is a reduction and simplification of laws, not an expansion to explicitly govern every imaginable situation.
That doesn't make any sense. The DMCA took away rights people already had with regard to copyrighted materials. Do we really need to fight for peoples' rights again every time something new comes along?
There is a ray of hope that there is some common sense in the courts. If that ruling had not happened how many weeks before some deaf person sued a record label for not making their music Deaf-Accessable (How would that work?) or perhaps they would sue a painter for not making their painting blind-accessable? Or my personal favorite, someone in a wheelchair filing a charge against the U.S for not making the mountains in National parks accessable (oh wait too late...) There is a limit, this person crossed it and thank god there was a judge with some common sense to strike it down!
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Don't ignore my disability as well. Let's stick up for those who can't see, hear or concentrate to use the web!
It's not that they are being charged more over the phone. It's just that people who use the internet is charged less. This is not discrimination, but a convenience. If you use the internet, you use less of our resources and you get to pay the ticket for less. I mean, let's say my disability is being late all the time. How can I see the movie for charging me more than people who go to the movies at 5 AM??? The fact is, they are being charged a fair price over the phone.
So blind people can't sit in the back seat and have someone drive them through the ATM lane at their local branch bank?
So manufacuturers of Automatic Teller Machine hardware should stamp two different versions of the buttons -- one with braille for the walk-up ATMs, and one without for drive-ups?
It makes sense to have braille text on all ATM machines, financially if for no other reason.
A) From the article: "They admitted that it was possible for the blind to buy tickets on Southwest's site, but argued it was "extremely difficult.""
I think this is an important fact. Being blind and using an inherently visual medium is always going to be difficult in some way. Coupled with the fact that the judge recognized that there are no guidelines from a generally accepted authority means that there wasn't anything for Southwest to comply or try to comply with.
2) The person could always use the phone and talk with a real person. The problem with disabilities is that human beings can adapt. Computer cannot. The ADA made things accessable (wheelchair ramps). Once inside, people can help deal with the individual disability.
For example, say a disabled person comes into a clothing store. They need help.
a) Say they are visually-impared. The employee can help describe colors and styles and pick out correct sizes.
b) Say they are hearing-impared and are mute. The employee and customer can communicate through written notes.
c) Say the employee is in a wheelchair. They may just need the employee to reach clothing for them.
The ADA does not say that all stores must have little tags on the clothes that give a verbal description when you press them or require everything to be at a height so that a person in a wheelchair can reach them.
A computer cannot adapt. Humans can. You cannot expect the WWW to give a disabled person the same abilites that a physically human being can. We do not have enough programmers to program each and every scenario on every page. Guidelines are nice, but no amount of guidelines will be sufficent at this time to make it as accessible as picking up a phone or actually going to the mall. An online clothing store is going to always rely on pictures to convey information. It will be a long time before a Clippy's great-great-great-grandson or granddaughter can come on and answer questions asthetic questions about the particular piece of clothing for blind people (or in my case color-blind people).
Brian Ellenberger
Well, HTML and other web standards were crafted for a purpose, that being to present information in a way unspecific to a particular method of presentation. That's why it's defined in terms of logical tags, rather than presentation information. That's why it's so hard to do graphic design with HTML. It's supposed to be that way.
Sure, you can use that technology in whatever manner you please, but if you're building a site that isn't accessible to the blind, or isn't readable in any browser, your really missing the point.
There exist better technologies for doing graphic design. If you want graphic design, use PDF. People won't view it as much, because people are looking for information, not fancy graphics.
Well if that's the case, couldn't everyone sue id software because they can't play quake3 while blind. A quake3 level could possibly be seen as a place exhibition, right? Suddenly the ADA doesn't makes sense, eh? Cyberspace != Meatspace.
I have to say I think the judge was wrong on this one, considering that all that was being asked was for was a little effort.
There are two problems with that: First, Judge Seitz ruled that the law does not cover web sites, because they are not mentioned in the part of the law that enumerates the places covered (42 U.S.C. 12181(7). Judges are not allowed to make new laws, however minor.
Second, she ruled that no standard for the degree and kind of effort involved exists, and that it was improper to impose a burden without specifying the limits on that burden. Again, for her to do so would have been to usurp the role of Congress.
In the wrong hands, sanity is a dangerous weapon.
Exaclty. Add 5% more code and companies could, potentially, make those 5% of the people new customers. For many companies, that represents a large, untapped, resourse of new customers.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Out of those here I've seen one top-level post which directly deals with someone who is disabled -- someone who has a coworker who is blind.
I am myself hearing-impaired and this means that I fall under the ADA. When I went to college I could get them to give me a note-taker if I'd wanted to.
There are many things I can't do that aren't covered by the law -- for example I've been getting interested in birding. But I can't hear birdsong for the most part, and I have no directional hearing. So any calls I do hear -- I can't tell where they're coming from to take a visual look to see what made the noise.
I accept that shortcoming, as I accept many others, because I know that my disability prevents me from doing some things. But I don't feel that I should be less able to access, say, the Internet -- just because it's not a "physical place". If web pages required sound in order to function rather than sight, I'd be in quite a fix.
Should it matter what it would cost to fix that problem for a webmaster? No. Why? It's discrimination, plain and simple. It sends the message 'We don't want you deaf people coming in here.'
Might as well put up a sign that says "No (insert ethnic group here) need apply."
i am a soviet space shuttle
The fact is the DMCA has done more harm than good for the vast majority of the online community. And the DMCA truly does nothing to "define how Copyright functions in cyberspace". Rather, it removes many previously established rights that citizens had with respect to copyrighted information that they had legal access to (i.e. fair use, first sale doctrine, limited time copyright, as established by legislation and judicial precedent), as well as squelching academic speech with respect to important technologies like encryption.
Frankly, I don't believe that getting extremely technical in judicial decisions or in legislation is a good idea at all, frankly, since technology moves too fast anyway. If we have to legislate now how HTML 4.0 compliant text should be presented, will we have to legislate in the future how SVG should be presented? Don't you think a bit of judicial commonsense and a bit of accomodation by businesses to the existing ADA legislation by making normal HTML compliant web pages as a fallback for accessibility make everybody happy?
I won't turn this into an ad hominem attack, but frankly, I think the parent post was modded up because the poster has "Dr." in front of his name rather than any particularly insightful commentary.
I am all for making reasonable efforts to provide Web accessibility to as many people as possible. It's just good business sense.
But how far must we go before "reasonable accommodation" means unreasonable allocations of development resources? One of our information designers just completed an accessibility overview of our site using section 508 and WAI guidelines, and the list of accessibility problems was somewhat discouraging: lack of alt attributes in img tags, complex table layouts, incompatible navigational elements--even the language used in our site copy could be regarded as difficult to follow for those with cognitive or reading disabilities. The cost to refactor our site architecture to conform to these guidelines would far outstrip any additional revenue we might gain.
On the other hand, we have a toll-free customer service number, staffed 24 hours a day, that allows you to access all of the products we offer for sale on the Web. So, is that "reasonable accommodation?" Or must we cater to every person with any type of disability, even if such a disability might prevent them from even being able to use the products we offer?
So our laws should ensure justice, but only for the downtrodden? Not that I think that the DMCA is just, I just don't think that classism should be used in an argument, and even if it were, I don't think that's fundamentally what differentiates the DMCA from this law.
Disability laws require special treatment to ensure a minimal level of human decency. Everyone else should be given a level playing field in the eyes of the law. That's the difference.
It is not a matter of making it look more 'professional'. It allows the publishing entity to ensure that their document will always print looking the same. HTML and .TXT do not allow that. Anyone who has used the web for more than a few weeks should be aware that different browsers display HTML documents differently. PDF avoids that problem; it is a publishing standard, not a display format, as HTML is.
It also makes it MUCH more difficult for the recipient to alter the document. HTML can be saved and altered very easily, PDF cannot. When publishing any kind of official information, this is a VERY important factor from a legal standpoint.
So are you arguing that deaf and blind people are "behind the times?" The question is not one of technology, but one of technology's interpretation of bad web design.
You know why Lynx is frequently mentioned? Because it ignores your precious design. Not because its backward, but because with Lynx I don't have to wait for your Flash intro to finish before I can buy my airline tickets. I don't have to wade through six Orbitz pop-ups before I can check my flight schedule. I don't have to look at your "haute-couture" yellow and pink color scheme that the market department called "trendy, hip, and sleek". The issue is many things, but the lack of technology is not one of them.
The other tine in this is that Lynx most closely mimics what most common screen readers "see" when translating the web into speech. It ignores all of the s used for formatting rather than presenting tabular data. A screen reader will break down these tables into rows and columns, which is great fun when a screen reader tries to "interpret" a jigsaw'ed graphic that makes up a site's entire homepage. You sift through eighty links trying to find a single one, all of which have no alt tag.
One more thing: You want your e-Commerce site to deal with the government, directly or indirectly? All of this is a moot point. You'll have to do sooner or later, so suck it up. Do you want to fix legacy code or learn how to develop for the Web properly in the first place? Up to you, pal...
"Goodness, how did you people live long enough to invent tools?" -Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher)
She just made an ignorant ruleing. I bet shes republican. Conservative. What garbage.
She didn't say that better accesibility is a bad idea, or that the legally blind don't need it. She's just saying that the current law doesn't require the web to be accessable to the blind. It's her place to interpret and apply the law; not to make new laws.
The next step now for the National Federation of the Blind, is to lobby the governemnt to make new laws that do explicitly apply to the web.
If you read the decision, you'll see that the plaintiff didn't approach Southwest about fixing the problem before filing suit. Southwest didn't really have a choice as to whether it would go to court or not.
The court did mention in a footnote that they're surprised Southwest didn't just fix the problem anyway, given the financial benefits to doing so. The truth is that it's not entirely Southwest's problem; some screen readers do just fine with Southwest's website and some do not. Part of the blame has to rest on the manufacturer of the plaintiff's screen reader. (Disclaimer: I work for a company whose screen reader does work with Southwest.com, so I might not be entirely unbiased.)
The physical distinction is important. Companies are only required to physically cater to the handicapped. Companies aren't required to have their advertising literature in braille. They aren't required to have a someone on premisis that does sign language, or have phone access for the deaf.
love is just extroverted narcissism
All I meant is that it was more important to legislate human behaviour to promote equality (ie, bring inferiors in line with superiors), and less important to legislate human behavior in cases where legislation is designed to superfluously protect (I say superfluously, because a copyright is a copyright, and theres no technical need to mandate behaviour of people in order to dissuade them from breaking an entirely law) those who already have an advatange (ie, ownership of the copyright.)
One law is designed to bring (wrt physical mobility) inferiors up to equal levels with superiors, while the other is designed to (wrt to ownership of assets) push inferiors (those that don't own the copyright) even furthur down the ladder of equal opportunity.
I certainly agree we shouldn't allow justice to operately slowly on the basis of classism. Even us semisocialists realize you dont want to kill all wealth-generating motivation by continually removing people from the top of the food pyramid. Its more like, when you only have 24 hours in the day, effort should be more focused on bringing equality to those who dont have it instead of furthur solidifying the advantage some people have. Thats why I took exception to the original post and the comparison it made.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Lessig made the point, in depth in his _Code and the laws of Cyberspace_ book. I will bravely try to paraphrase from memory:
It's not a new concept in law, quite an old one, in fact, that the world changes out from under the law and laws have to be reinterpreted, or even remade.
He uses the example of wiretapping laws that were created when the land-line telephone went into widespread use. Until then, you couldn't be a party to a conversation without physically being present, either to hear the conversation or to read it.
Search and siezure applied to physical space, and the founding fathers had intended the limits on search and siezure to protect conversations (especially conversations about influencing the government). Telephones came along, and a guy up on a pole could listen to a conversation in a private residence down the block, without a warrant to enter the premesis.
Lessig explained that the decisions about wiretap law presented the judiciary with a choice - should the law protect the physical space (wiretaps okay) or should the law protect the conversations in the physical space (wiretaps not okay).
There are legal terms for each of these alternatives, although I don't remember them. History is that the judiciary went with the intent, not the letter, of the law set down by people who had no concept that something called a telephone would ever be invented. The judiciary could have justified the decision either way; they had to make a choice. (Whether we like the choice or not is incidental; they're judges and they have the power to make unpopular choices.)
The invention of the telephone directly caused a need for new law to be made, in order to interpret an older law that was being superceeded by the technology.
That's why you sometimes have to make/change law for new technology.
Read Lessig's book. He's a good writer and he is on the forefront of adapting our laws to the planetary network.
The web isn't about pretty graphics and groovy flash movies, it's about sharing information...
Correction: your web is about sharing information (incidentally, so is mine), but there are a lot of people who believe that the web is about interacting, and animation, and movie trailers. Although those are not my preferred uses, it's not my call to say that they're wrong and my way is the only correct one.
For comparison, look at the people who use Usenet to distribute binaries. That wasn't the original goal of the system, and many people don't go anywhere near alt.binaries, but that doesn't stop the files from pouring in.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
That said, I agree with the ruling -- I don't think that the government should force somebody to make web paged text-accessible. I excercise my choice to avoid graphics-laden sites without text access, and encourage others to do the same. The appropriate way to fix these sites is pressure from users, not by legislation.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Just because that's what YOU think it's about doesn't mean that's what it's about.
The "purpose" of the web is defined by those who use it.
I don't think that Southwest was fighting so that they wouldn't have to do it. The fight was against a lawsuit that was going to get a lawyer paid.
I'll bet if someone had approached Southwest and offered TO HELP them with this problem, instead of filing a frivolous lawsuit, this problem might already be history.
After all, it isn't in Southwest's best interest to alienate customers.
This was just a play for money by an unscrupulous lawyer. Bang, dead, there I said it!
The ADA has two purposes. The first one is to eliminate any discrimination towards individuals solely on the basis of their disability. Therefore, the argument must clearly present that "his disability and only his disability" is the root cause of his inability to access tickets at the reduced rate.
Well, one can argue that universal access doesn't apply. For instance, individuals without computers or internet access don't have access to the web site either. That eliminates the sole "disability discrimination rule" that the suit is based upon. If the judge would imply that SWA would be forced to provide a remedy, the customers that don't have computers could naturally sue along the same grounds. I doubt that the judge will let that happen any time soon.
The second purpose of the ADA is clearly define and legislate uniform standards of access for disabled individuals covered under the "universal access" portion of the ADA. While it is true that the government has officially legislated web standards for "public sector" (government) sites, the same is not true for private sector sites. SWA falls under the private sector. Therefore, there isn't a legislated standard for them to follow.
Result. Case gets thrown out. The ADA doesn't apply. Next case.
Legally, the decision is correct. Ethically, that decision is debatable. SWA should learn that this case will hurt them in terms of bad PR. And while SWA should give him the reduced rate, they are not legally obligated to do so.
Also, I can safely point out that price isn't that much of a factor. The person sitting next to you in that plane has most likely saved more on his/her flight than you have...
Aren't you the guy I saw this morning, driving his Ford Model T on the highway, doing 30 mph?
If you want to make a car analogy, from your arguments I'd say that you're the guy driving his huge SUV down the road, where the four-wheel drive and extra power of an SUV are entirely unnecessary, and the added gas consumption and safety concerns all in all make it a bad choice. (And an extremely common choice that many will defend to their last breath.) Yet you choose it because you think your selfish desires are more important, and because somehow you think it's more "advanced" than something that makes sense.
The web can and does work well with a text browser. I don't use one (mostly I use Mozilla), but I should be able to. Honestly, how can you justify not supporting a text browser unless your content is intrinsically graphical? And, words are not intrinsically graphical, I don't care how beautiful you think your design is. I'm not even saying that you have to make all pages nothing but single column white on black text. Just use decent web design and standards, and Lynx can adapt. Make it as beautiful as you want, just don't insist on using brain-dead tools that don't understand standards and clean layout. It's not such a big deal, or at least it wouldn't be if folks like you didn't feel so justified in grabbing on to whatever is new and shiny at the expense of what really makes sense given the situation.
I'm not defending outdated browsers. Indeed I wish Netscape 4 would go away, and I wish that none of us would have to go through the annoyance of supporting it's horribly buggy CSS implementation. It's obselete, and has been passed by. That to me is the Model T. Lynx, and text-based browsers, on the other hand, are a different story. They're not just old; they are an implementation of the web for a completely different platform. There's no reason why the text content of the web shouldn't be available on the "text" platform, unless the "new and shiny fluff" critereon is really so important.
I find it very interesting that the majority of people posting here who are saying "I should be able to visit the entire web using a 1980's, text-only browser" are kids.
I suspect you don't know my age. I also suspect it is at least 10 years greater than yours. Maybe you should grow up a bit and attain some perspective before going around calling others "kids".
-Rob
This is why we have the W3C, so we can establish what standards there are. We don't need laws, we just need to agree what is considered standard and not use the rest. IE5-only restrictions, for instance, are non-standard, which alienates those who are using Linux, don't want IE, or are otherwise restricted to text only (console users, blind, etc.), and you can't legislate out stupidity, so what is a law going to do?
This sig no verb.
Why do people feel the need to violate my rights in order to make their lives easier? As I've said many times before: I'm very sorry blind (or deaf, or stupid) people have problems with my website, but why am I required to spend more of my resources (money, time, whatever) to accomodate them?
Why is it OK for the government to violate my right to present information the way I see fit and my right to do business with the people I choose in the manner I choose?
Why do people think that our only rights are the ones enumerated in the Bill of Rights, in direct contrast to what the ninth amendment explicitly says?
What compelling national interest using powers specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution allows them to restrict my rights in this manner?
I don't want to spend the extra effort to make my website accessible to everyone with every conceivable type of disability. As far as I am concerned, it is their responsibility to make my site accessible if they want to view it. If they want to donate the resources required to do this, or come up with a general, client-side solution that requires no extra work on my part (that means: no ALT tags, no text-only pages, etc.), great!
Hell, if disabled people were simply grateful instead of indignant, I might even donate the time to make my site more accessible.
But don't expect me to expend more resources to make your life easier. Anyone who feels entitled to the fruits of my labor just because I have something they don't have should go form their own socialist country elsewhere where they can violate each others' rights to their hearts' content.
This country was founded on a different concept---that of individual responsibility and personal freedom---that is being eroded with law after law and court decision after court decision. Is no one else concerned about these violations of our rights?
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The remaining legal issue would then pertain to whether the company's webserver location can be considered a "place of accomodation" and whether the website can be considered a service or privilege offered by that place. This judge evidently does not.
Not that I agree with the judge. But this is evidently a matter of legal interpretation rather than "insane" reasoning.
Next, they'll be suing Playboy because their magazines do not faciliate the masterbatory desires of the blind. Or maybe they'll sue the phone sex companies because they're services aren't available for the deaf. Pretty soon, fat and ugly women will be suing strip clubs because they don't hire fat and ugly people -- appearance discrimination.
This is getting ridiculous. I can understand public access for blind people -- ramps, elevators, etc. I can understand brail. I can understand certain features in public buildings to help the blind. But I'm gonna have to kill someone if someone sues McDonalds because they're doors aren't "wide enough for 700 pound poeple to fit through" or sues the movie theaters because their seats don't accomadate 500 pounds worth of ass.
Telling companies to redesign their websites is a violation of free speech. It would be like mandating that Michael Crichton also release his books in brail, and threatening to fine him if he doesn't. Companies shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars making sure that the 0.1% of people who are blind can use their website easily.
And private websites certainly shouldn't have to accomodate the disabled. If I have a website with some opinions by myself on there and lots of other political stuff, and then have a little link saying "buy my T-shirt", that does not make it a commercial site. Its still a private website, and I should be able to do with it whatever I want.
I'll grant you that if the web were more friendly for blind people, it would be a better web:
1. There would be no unnecessary images. All web-sites would look like those of FSF.org.
2. The only places where pictures or sounds would be would be for screenshots or things like that; there wouldn't be banner ads, and structural features of a website wouldn't rely on graphical barriers.
But forcing companies to change their websites evokes free speech issues.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
now that i have your attention, look, most /. readers, myself included despise the DMCA because precisely it infringes upon our freedom. and that is the problem. the ada specifically takes away freedom from some, to give "access" or in other words, privileges to others. how so.
Bad, bad, bad comparison.
The philosophy behind freedom in a society such as ours is that one should only limit freedom once it begins to harm the health or freedom of others. Hence, at least according to the philosophy, we have freedom of speech, unless we create a clear and present danger, or unless we commit slander/libel. We have freedom of assembly, but that doesn't give us the freedom to assemble on somebody else's private property.
The DMCA limits freedom of expression in completely nonsensical ways. It outlaws tools which can be used for entirely legal purposes, and outlaws even telling people where to find those tools. It limits freedom in the name of preserving certain others' abilities to-- limit freedom! It's completely contrary to the philosophy of freedom in our country.
On the other hand, the ADA is one case where your freedoms to design your building are being limited precisely because without those limits, you can infringe upon the freedoms of others. If you're building a place accessible to the public, then the public, theoretically, has the freedom to come and go. But, unless you make your building accessible for the disabled, certain folks don't have that freedom. So, the ADA limits your freedoms to prevent you from exercising those freedoms in a manner that infringes upon the freedoms of others.
Don't try to compare the ADA and the DMCA. If anything, that will only lend credence to the DMCA. The last thing we want is a whole set of people concerned with a different issue thinking that supporting the DMCA might help their issue.
(By the way: those keys at the lower left and lower right of your keyboard that say "Shift" on them: they are for making capital letters. Thought you might be interested to know about them.)
-Rob
Academically, yeah the web is about sharing information. However, it is also a marketing media for business.
If you look at the web from a business perspective, it's a worldwide stage where companies compete for attention and sales. The web is a medium for advertising and marketing where information is shared in a way that needs to impress and convince the consumer to buy a product or service. That's where things like flash and good graphic design improve the chances of impressing a consumer. Such features create emotions, which are proven to work better than facts in advertising.
To bring this back to the topic at hand, sites (including the airline website in question) are designed to address the needs of the company's target market. Perhaps blind people aren't part of the airline's target market. Whether or not we feel that blind people (or other disabled people) should be considered in that target market then becomes an issue of the public telling a company how to run their business.
Is that what we think should happen? All companies should sell and service all sorts of disabled people? Sure, I would love to see more companies think about accessibility. But to enforce it by law may not be feasible, relevant or necessary for a good proportion of companies out there.
I'm working on a project to implement the Aural CSS (from the css2 specs) standards as an activex control for IE...its sad that neither mozilla or IE or even opera support ACSS
with the ruling essentially removing requirement for sites to comply, it seems that all of CSS2's recommendations regarding Aural CSS are moot if sites don't implemenet it.
One hope, however, is the eventual coming of many non-visual browsers (i.e., car browsers, pocket radio browsers, or whatever people dream up), which will make Aural CSS incredibly important for us to have a richer experience of non-visual webpages!