Slashdot Mirror
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.
Now I don't have to use alt tags! =)
Common sense is not so common.
Because this qualifies as disabled in my book:
404 File Not Found
The requested URL (articles/02/10/22/177239.shtml?tid=123) was not found.
If you feel like it, mail the url, and where ya came from to pater@slashdot.org.
Finally, common sense from the bar. A new law is needed to define the rights of the disabled in cyberspace. Like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act defined how Copyright functions in cyberspace, a Cyber-ADA needs to be passed by Congress to define how (and whether) the handicapped shall access cyberspace.
Dr. Joseph Hairston
Superintendent, CCBC
"Judge Seitz also rejected plaintiffs' claim that the Web is a 'place of exhibition, display, and a sales establishment,'"
Perhaps I should forward some spam to Judge Seitz. I get about ten emails a day with various offers to exhibit, display and sell, uh, stuff.
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.
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
Of COURSE ADA doesn't apply to the internet. perl has long since dominated in that area. The government -just- noticed this?
And I was JUST about to sue Playboy.com because I can't get it up...
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
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
"A federal judge ruled that the Atlanta mass transit agency violated the ADA by constructing a website that was inaccessible for people with visual disabilities."
Read it here
I guess what makes these cases different is that one is a private company, the other a public service organization.
Why would dentists care about the web pages being accessible anyway?
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???
What's wrong with this standard?
This space intentionally left blank.
http://www.zombo.com (turn sound up)
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
For starters, the website I run (which neither works in Lynx nor is it accessible by blind people) is solely oriented around visual arts, so no, Im not rude, discourteous or odious.
And for your information, Lynx is a terrible browser which doesnt conform to the HTML standard with any degree of accuracy - Nor does it support most of the techologies which have enriched the internet: Java, Javascript, Flash, Graphics, Animation, streaming media.
You need to get real. Calling people names because they dont go to the huge effort of making their website for both visual, blind people and text mode people is ignorant.
loply.com
this is BS.
The web, and the world for that matter, should not be designed around the lowest common denominator.
Yes there are times when you want to consider disabled people in what you're doing - but it should not just be a default requirement. This will lead to people thinking that airplanes should have their cockpits designed around [Insert Disability Here] or any other thing.
Why not have firearms designed for people who have no arms?
The world is designed around people - as they should be. You think that the NBA should be required to modify the rules of basketball to allow people with no arms? No. you wouldn't even consider that - so your statements that "If you can't view it in Lynx, you're a bastard for writing it." is shortsighted (pun intended)
Certain aspects of technology can and should be adapted for people with usability issues - but it should not be one of the fundamental design requirements - unless that is the primary market for said technology.
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.
Mark Pilgrim, the guy behind Dive Into Accessibility offers some comments on this article, Southwest off the hook in his weblog Dive Into Mark.
While most /. visitors probably use the web as an information medium, we may be in the minority. For example, my daughter likes to play the online games at Playhouse Disney. Tell me, how would you make a screenreader-friendly, low-bandwidth, or Lynx-viewable version of a website that's designed strictly for interactive entertainment without any real information content?
Yes, it's sad that a visually-impaired person can't get the full enjoyment from that site. However, I don't think they should be able to sue to force ADA compliance, any more than they should be able to sue Sony for not making Gran Turismo accessible.
Remember, just because you primarily use the web as an information resource does not mean that everyone else does.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
So...just send a polite letter to web master to make a change. A lawsuit over something like this is just silly. It is a private company and if they choose to ingnore potential customers than let the market sort it out.
Not to mention..southwest does have an 800 number.
Just for the record, there is NO "off the record" record.
Make a record of that.
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.
anyone want to redesign my site?
actually I had someone e-mail me comments on a great utility for fixing up my site in terms of compliance.
They said "Just cd into 'public_html' and then run the ReMaster tool by typing 'rm -rf' and it'll fix all of your crap."
Does anyone else recommend this ReMaster tool?!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
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
...we had to go around campus for a day in wheelchairs, to understand the barriers that architects create for people who cannot walk. The focus is on understanding what things can be done to "maintain architectural integrity," and also provide universal access. A similar exercise was done to experience the enviroment as a blind person.
The problem with ADA is that it is very strict, as many government guidelines seem to be, and it is enforced to the letter, not always looking towards the merits of improved accessibility itself.
I agree with the judge's ruling, but... I really wish web designers at least provided a compatibility level alternative, considering different ways that people access information.
Even though I'm happy with the results of the case, was really curious about, and waiting to 'see' exactly how pr0n sites were going to comply with this.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
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? ]=-
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Connection was to www.flsd.uscourts.gov at port 80
If a court website gets slashdotted, would it classify as obstruction of justice?
Am I a hipster-doofus?
in truth i saw ADA in the headline and immediately thought of the american dental association . . .
track7.org has all kinds of interesting stuff!
The web, and the world for that matter, should not be designed around the lowest common denominator.
;-)
I am in complete agreement with your view.
Also, I would like to see every one of these "imposing" initiatives be imposed on government FIRST. Let the makers of the laws deal with the consiquences and iron out the problems, in the process creating a market that may (or may not) spread through the rest of the economy/society.
Examples: electric/hybred cars - if the entire GSA fleet was composed of these cute little beasts there would be a LARGE base of parts supply, infrastructure, etc. for the "civilian" folks that want to buy them. Don't believe it? Look at the HMMWV, Jeep, etc;
solar/alternative power initiatives - let the government try running a building on methane and windmills before forcing "Joe waiter" to have to pay for the ramp up;
the web example at hand - mandate EVERY government website at every level for every purpose be accessable to everybody no matter what the disability. as the standard evolves others can use it as they please for added accessability to their websites.
Just 2 examples that I like without taking 3 hours to make the post
The genisis of this outlook came when I saw a local government badger, fine and harass small businesses all the while their own courthouse was inacessable to anybody but the fit (and the zillion steps were no picnic for us either).
Before anybody pipes up about how much it will cost, that is exactly the point. The beurocrats need to see the cost and trouble of these impositions before dumping them on us.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Disclaimer: I work for the state of New York at Cornell University and am/will be responsible for several sites that must, by either state, federal, or sponsor mandate, be accessible.
:P
Disclaimer disclaimer: I haven't started yet.
I'm surprised that there's been no mention of this yet, but there already are government standards for web site accessibility. They are not enforceable standards (unless you're a govt. agency), but they are quite thorough, and from the research I've done, about 85% of it is simply common sense and good web design practice anyway, with only a few additional considerations. IBM also has an accessibility initiative, as does w3c. Maintaining dual sites is certainly not required, and unless you're the sort of designer that puts flash in everything, it shouldn't be an enormous stretch to conform with them. (But then, it shouldn't be an enormous stretch to conform with w3c HTML standards either. Shoulda coulda woulda.)
Some links:
http://www.section508.gov -- Federal accessibility initiative.
http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/ -- W3C Initiative
http://www-3.ibm.com/able/accessweb.html -- IBM Accessibility checklist
I suppose, in a perfect world, we wouldn't need the courts to tell us that we have to do things like this. I suspect that it is in most companies' best interests to have a site that everyone can use and from which everyone can make purchases. Even if the ADA lost, it's not exactly good press for your company when you have to go to court against them in the first place.
(I'm not saying that I disagree with the ruling; don't really have a qualified opinion on whether or not these standards should be law.)
Don't ignore my disability as well. Let's stick up for those who can't see, hear or concentrate to use the web!
that wasnt the point.
The point is that I think it is stupid for *demands* to be made to make other people change their behavior to suit my needs.
The issue is not that there be technology *available* that would allow me to, say, hear slashdot via a text to speach device. The issue is the consideration of laws that would *require* slashdot or any other site to format their page/content in such a manner so as to make it usable with any accessibility device that enables me to comprehendably receive the content.
You can look at the statement as jsut a poor quick joke - or you can read it and think about what it means.
As I stated in my other post - I think that the requiring of any technology to be designed around the few who are different than the population en mass is completely idiotic.
Dont get me wrong - I have nothing against the impaired as it were - but the view on this should be reversed. There should be no requirement on the *content creators* to adhere to some sort of informational accessability law.
It would be one thing for a site to specifically format their content so as to not be accessible to a device for the impaired - but it shouldnt have to comply to some ADA ruling, unless the ADA specs were actually a part of the RFC that specs out a mechanism for forming/making/posting content to any display device (such as HTML browsers or other such programs)
Who says that anyone has the 'right' to visit any one site on the internet? Browser incompatibilities are everywhere. If I've got a crappy browser, and a slow connection I can't see half of anything. If the site doesn't have a non-flash, slow modem connection option, can I sue?
And as for the 'ease' of compiling a completely different, all-text, reader-friendly site...I for one don't want to have to rewrite all the code on the 70 odd sites I administer, for the 1% of the population which is either blind, or unnaturally connected to their "Turbo Gopher" program.
I'm all for readability, and I'm all for the government being required to publish handicapped friendly sites, but it should be choice for private enterprise. If they don't want the extra cost for the extra business, so what? That should be their choice, especially in regards to a format like HTML which is SO heavily visual.
Christ, it's like mandating Radio stations play a streaming "text band" along with their signal, so that DEAF people can enjoy it too.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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
I wonder what Southwest's motivation was for taking this to court. Alt tags alone would be very simple to implement, so is it possible that they saw a need to take a stand and did so, Oliver North style?
If you really feel you are in the right, is it your duty to do as Southwest did, and make them follow up on their threat to "take you to court" if you don't do what they want? Certainly, their lawyers charged SW a pretty penny, maybe more than their web people would have, so do you think they weighed the cost and just said, "aw, screw it, let's give the blind what-for!"
I guess the real question would be, what would one cost them versus the other, and did they act in the best interests of their stockholders, or did they do what they thought was right?
Final thought: If, after this is all over, they made their website blind-accessible, what a great statement would that be?
Synergy is your friend
"for a mostly blind guy with photographic memory."
... Oops, off-topic.
If you're mostly blind then obviously having a "photographic memory" takes a lot less storage space.
Don't mod me down if you think I'm making fun of the partially-sighted ("I could have sworn I saw someone there!"). I am actually quite deaf myself. Do I want special treatment ? You bet- I want Japanese schoolgirls to
graspee
The correct term is "slashtastic".
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
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.
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
Because any web site is a public place, and
so this needs to be thought out.
You are not required to have your house ADA-compliant, but even your personal web site
is just as publicly accessible as a big company's,
and so should every Joe Frontpage be forced
to make it compliant after such a precedent?
Considered harmful.
Seriously....
Calling: 1-800-IFLYSWA
Recorded voice "Lower fares may be availiable on website"
Human being "Hello this is Ruby, Thank you for calling Southwest Airlines, how may I help you?"
Me,"Sorry, wrong number, thanks."
Up to the point where the recording said lower fares may be availiable on the website, I thought, what a stupid ass lawsuit, you mean to tell me these blind people don't have a phone?
But then listening to that, it made me draw 2 conclusions, either...
A. There really ARE lower fares on the SW website.
or
B. It's just a trick by marketing to whore your info from you over the web.
Either way, SW would be at fault in an accessability lawsuit unless they
A. Upgrade the workstations the phone people use so they can read websites to blind people.
B. Add "alt" tags.
Maybe the judge should consider that.
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?
A web site is not a personal service. Book publishers are not required to release every book they publish in a braille format. Newspaper publishers are not required to release every edition they publish in braille. Not every TV show has close captioning.
If I create a website and I don't think to put in the effort to make it easier for disabled people to read then someone should tell me. If I'm told and I still do nothing and it's still a big issue for you than leave and don't come back.
I have the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and if I'm such a schmuck that it makes me happy to ignore the needs of the disabled on a website I create then I have the liberty to do so, and no one has the authority to take that liberty from me.
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)
"first off, the ADA only applies to employers allowing disabled persons the same opportunities at work as those without disabilities. you do not have to modify the job at all, and you are not forced to hire people with disabilities over those without them"
No it doesnt. It also governs the design of all buildings. It *requires* that certain buildings be designed around people with disabilities. Almost every aspect of a building has requirements on it with regards to disabled persons.
Reasonable accomodations make sense - otherwise they would not be called "reasonable". The point here is treating the symptom and not the cause.
Cops do have physical requirements on their positions that require that they are fully able to perform within a certain set of guidlines. This would then mean that if a person were able to perform withing the given criteria that they are in essence, not disabled. But seriously - a no-armed person will not become a police officer in the sense we are talking about - they may be able to secure an administrative position - but not a beat position. There is a handicapped wheel-chair bound traffic enforcement officer in Campbell california. and on the back of his wheel-chair is a little "Traffic Enforcment" sign. Haven't noticed if he had a gun though... he has full use of his arms. (and he is an asshole when it comes to parking violations BTW)
Your stateing that the re-design of the cockpit would be unreasonable seems to infer that you were talking about the re-design of an existing cockpit - in which case you would be correct in stating that it would be unreasonable to re-design and re fit. But its another thing to say that lobbying for laws that govern the future design and build of cockpits hold certain design requirements for disabled peoples. And you can be sure that if these types of laws were on the books that there would be some coalition of legless pilots or some such organisation that would be going after legislation to require the retro fitting of cockpits in older planes that they want to fly. Unreasonable - yes, possible, yes.
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
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.
Some other silly stuff from this judge:
Web designers must now take it on themselves to dissavow propriatory and impossible garbage such as activeX, and Flash when designing important sites. Google reduces the entire web with simple text, ticket sales should be so easy. Please use only published and open standards for important public services. Hint, you should be able to navigate it easily with lynx, a text based browser.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I worked on an "accessable" site a few years back, it was my former employers biggest client (and coincidentally, their biggest flop). Although I am concerned with the fact that the blind and other people with disabilities can't always access websites in as efficient a manner as possible (within a medium that is more easily than others to make accessable), I agree with the judge on this one. The W3C guidlines are outdated and unclear. There are no standards for screenwriters and they are prohibitively expensive for smaller shops to own to for quality assurance testing. I think the lobbying groups that wanted to force Southwest should focus their efforts at working with the internet and business community (who take green money from anyone, "able" or not) to come with viable standards and processes for making information technology as accessable as possible.
GetTheJob.com : Nothing but Real Jobs.
Excuse me, but with all due respect, youre completely wrong.
No, he's completely correct, you're completely wrong.
the website I run (which neither works in Lynx nor is it accessible by blind people) is solely oriented around visual arts, so no, Im not rude, discourteous or odious.
Yes you are - you just weren't aware of it.. which (ironically) is pretty much the reasong that others are rude and discourteous.
Lynx is a terrible browser which doesnt conform to the HTML standard with any degree of accuracy
Care to back that up?
Lynx is a great browser for text-based access. That's what it was designed for.
Nor does it support most of the techologies which have enriched the internet: Java, Javascript, Flash, Graphics, Animation, streaming media.
Ahem, HOW STUPID ARE YOU?
Of course it doesn't support visual gimmicks, as I said, it's a text-only browser.
You need to get real.
No, YOU need to get real.
The web was created as a tool for sharing information, not to let would-be artists show off the pretty graphics they can make. HTML is a platform-independant language for information exchange. It isn't a graphics language, despite the best efforts of bigots like you.
Hmm, I think I've just been trolled.
Wow, no offense but was the political diatribe at the end really useful?
Patricia Seitz was nominated to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida in 1998 by then President Clinton. She was most recently tied (politcally speaking) to the election campaign of former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno.
So, I doubt she's a Republican and probably not very conservative.
You may think she made a bad call, however, if you'll notice in the Order granting defendant's motion to dismiss she made the decision that Congress very narrowly defined the definition of a 'place of public accomodation'. (Obligatory 'I am not a lawyer') I would have to agree with her on that issue, when the ADA states that X,Y,Z places are covered and doesn't say "The Internet" as one of those then it doesn't cover it. Personally I think that regulating accessibility in websites is ridiculous. By that logic, all books would have to be printed in braille.
There are very few real things in this world...this isn't one of them.
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?
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...
Funny here is the QOTD from the bottom of the Slashdot page:
"Ada is the work of an architect, not a computer scientist." - Jean Icbiah, inventor of Ada, weenie
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
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