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Appeals Court Says ADA Doesn't Cover the Web
tassii writes "In this article from CNet, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a lower court's decision from October 2002, which concluded that Web sites cannot be required to comply with the 1991 disabilities law."
Although I am by no means in favor of requiring web designers to build their documents a certain way, there are plenty of good reasons to do so that will not only benefit the disabled, but also those using text-browsers or special clients that take advantage of the structure of a page to display only the parts of interest to the user.
If web designers focused more on the information they want to deliver rather than its appearance, this would be less of an issue.
the ADA - great idea, some great effects...a great hassle for a lot of other people.
why is it so damn hard to just do the 'right' thing for once? the public is stupid enough that you could do the opposite of what they want, put a commercial on TV about how it was a good thing, and they'd forget about it anyway and be happy. we're worse than sheep - as a whole we are about as smart as a shrimp or maybe a minnow.
Nevermind Survivor is coming on, gotta go. Pass me the potato chips.
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
USA government websites have to comply with Section 508, UK and Australian websites have to be accessible to disabled people, and lots of EU countries are implementing or have already implemented similar laws. In particular, the UK Disability Rights Commission has already stated in plain terms that the Disability Discrimination Act applies to websites, and in Australia, the Sydney Olympics Committee were successfully sued for tens of thousands of dollars because blind people couldn't use their IBM-developed website.
The trend in web development is towards greater accessibility; for the most part sticking with valid HTML 4.01 and following sound development principles like graceful degradation is enough to be accessible.
... as the internet is not a public place but just a glorified hard drive full of porn.
and when I mean well, I screw up :)
(i'm in the shrimp category)
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
The court cited the fact that the Internet wasn't listed in the 1991 law. ...which of course is to be expected since lawmakers would have been unaware of anything called the Internet back in 1991. To assert that the Internet is not a "place of public accomodation" is lunacy considering the ever-increasing amount of goods and services available over the Internet and amount of time the average American spends online.
Considering the fact that the ADA covers such items as cement walkways without overly tight turns and the installation of elevators, I find it hard to believe that the comparatively inexpensive addition of alt attributes to images and clearly defined form elements constitutes an undue burden on businesses and the web at large. I also find it hard to believe that exclusion of the Internet and Internet-related facilities from the ADA is consistent with the spirit of the law as written in 1991. Does anyone truly believe that if common knowledge of the Internet existed back in 1991 that the ADA would not have included it in its guidelines and requirements?
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
That doesn't mean that web page designers should blatently disregard disabled users, either.
Well-designed pages, with structured CSS layouts and tags (as opposed to sites using huge layout tables, frames, or bleeding edge CSS to get browsers to do backflips) look great in most browsers (and all recent browsers), are readable in all browsers, and are easily read by text readers and other devices.
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
.... would be a more accurate title (for the CNET article too). If you read the judgement[1] you'll see the case was dismissed because the appeal used a different theory of the case not argued in the original hearing; it seems this would require a whole new suit (IANAL, etc).
/. to RTFJ is a step beyond even RTFA I know...the gist: in the original hearing the plaintiff argued that the website is a "public accomodation" and lost; the appeal argued that the company as a whole is a "public accommodation".
On the plus side, as the new theory was not judged on its merits, this doesn't form precedent.
[1] asking
Of course Ada doesn't cover the Web! That's what Java does! You can see that plain as day, just look around Websites; you can see a whole lot of "Adascript" and "Ada Runtime Environment" out there, can't you?
:)
Jeez, only in America would we need a court to tell us something this obvious...
The appeals court did not come to the conclusion cited in the parent. This was the ruling of the original case (i.e., old news).
The appeals court "[Acted] largely on procedural grounds" in dismissing the case. The appeal was dismissed because the plaintiff didn't do the appeal correctly.
I think that most people would agree that the Internet would have been included in the ADA had it been as large in 1991 as it is today.
On the other hand, this statement from the original ruling is one that I think is quite important to keep in mind:
"To expand the ADA to cover 'virtual' spaces would be to create new rights without well-defined standards," Seitz wrote in a 12-page opinion dismissing the case.
To simply wave your hands and say that "the Internet" is a public space would be overly broad. Very precise categorizations of what sites the ADA applies to need to be created. As private homes are not covered by the ADA, neither should private home pages. Accessibility is a good thing, but it can be too much work for some private webmasters to try to overhaul.
Here, that process gave us the headline: "Disabilities Act doesn't cover Web, court says" on cnet. The /. headline is essentially just a rephrasal of that: "Appeals Court Says ADA Doesn't Cover the Web".
But this isn't what happened. The cnet article starts off saying: "Acting largely on procedural grounds," indicating something rather different. The article says that the appeal was disallowed because there was a procedural error. In particular, the plantiffs used a different argument in appeallate court than they did in the district court, which is generally a no-no. So the appeallate court had no choice but to dismiss the appeal.
But it's clear that this isn't them saying that the ADA doesn't cover the web. "In declining to evaluate the merits of this case, we are in no way unmindful that the legal questions raised are significant," wrote one of the three judges. That's in the article. If you read the judgement itself, it says in the introduction, "Unfortunately, we are unable to reach the merits of this case, however, because none of the issues on appeal are properly before us. Accordingly, we are constrained to dismiss the appeal."
From reading the judgement, I get the impression that the judges are sorry they didn't get to decide the issue. It's almost apologetic in tone, and comes close to giving the plantiffs "hints" on how they might argue a similar case next time. But they're not allowed to review issues that weren't raised in the district court, unless there's a really good reason. You can read the judgement for details; it spends most of its length discussing why it can't examine this case.
The headline here is just plain wrong; the appeallate court said nothing of the kind. Don't believe headlines.
I agree with you partly, but "place of public accommodation" not applying to a web site? You will forgive me if I don't consider websites fitting that definition an extension any more than the first amendment applying to a telephone conversation an extension. The intent seems clear even if technological advancement makes the original wording seem vague.
The ADA was passed so that those with various disabilities could function independantly in our society and take advantage of the goods and services available to everyone else. With more and more time spent online, I don't see how stripping the visually impaired of these goods and services at a whim (or through laziness or inaction) is somehow consistent with the ADA.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Oh, wait, I was getting confused with something else. Carry on.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I bet these ADA retards want the Mona Lisa modified to make it handicap accessable.
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These are the same lunatics that tryied to sue an automotive garage in MN because they wouldn't hire a blind mechanic! Good luck trying to cut the brown wire jackass!
These are the same lunatics that preach such nonsense as requiring an elevator be installed in a two story bookstory in a historical building, then when they are denied the permit because the building is on the registry, they fine the store out of existence.
This is the same ADA that complains about national forests not being handicap accessable so they have to rip up the forest to put concrete\asphalt roads so the people in wheelchairs can "Get in Touch With Nature"
I DEMAND that the art community make their painting handicap accessable by having a richly written brail impression made ON the painting so our blind can enjoy the original painting versus some inferior, 3rd party description.
I DEMAND that they make the NFL handicap accessable and require that a certain % of players on a team handicap to ensure they are not excluded from athletics! Hell why stop there, how come there are no blind Archers in the Olympics!?
Need samples of the BS try http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg18n2e.html
http://www.nfb.org/bm/bm99/bm991205.htm
http://
http://w
http://www.buildings.com/Articles/detail2.a
oh hell just go to yahoo or google and type in ADA abuses there are so damn many of em it's sick.
If someone went around killing trial lawyers I'd seriously have to think about leaving free ammo outside my door with a Thank You sign..
ADA - Got to hell, I'm sick of you BS whining you petty SOBs.
is that it is TOO broad. I used it several years ago. (and no, I wasn't one of those sueing because I wear glasses. My case is almost word for word the same as the example they use to explain the law).
The problem is that too many people are trying to use it for things it was never intended for. This website thing is an example. It is wasting the courts time when they could be working on cases that MATTER.
Are co-location sites required to keep aisles and cages wide enough for those in wheelchairs to maneouver? Don't most racks put some equipment higher than the wheel-bound can reach? If so there must be an exception, probably related to the requirements of the job which is also why high-rise welders are able-bodied.
A sysadmin job without ever touching hardware ? How do you cable the servers ? How do you diagnose problems when the machine just won't come up ? Etc.
After making a site WAI-AAA compliant (temporarily), I am aware of the issues you've brought up. I agree with you about Jaws and absolutely believe that if they made developer toolkits for little to no cost, more sites would be accessible.
That said, content-driven sites that rely on Flash are an oxymoron. What I have found is that JavaScript should be used for form validation and data hiding (on a content-driven site). This means that the text reader in the worst case scenario gets more information rather than less than their visually-oriented counterpart.
You have some sympathy from me about the users of DreamWeaver and FrontPage, but since you are getting paid for it, not that much. It's drudgery, but that's why it's called "work." If your users outputted HTML directly from Word or Excel, it would suck for you more, but it doesn't detract from the need for accessibility. In fact, in accentuates the need.
If the ADA provides a reason for companies to demand accessibility-friendly tools, I am all for it. Will it cause pain? Surely it will. Is the pain worth it? I believe it is.
Your argument was that 100% accessibility (especially in your strict, academic environment) is prohibitively difficult. My argument was that the bar is so much lower than that in the "real" world, that even minor accomodation of accessibility (such as well-formed, valid markup including alt attributes and form labels) would be an improvement.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Reported in House)
TITLE IV--TELECOMMUNICATIONS
RELAY SERVICES
SEC. 401. TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES FOR HEARING-IMPAIRED AND SPEECH-IMPAIRED INDIVIDUALS.
(a) TELECOMMUNICATIONS- Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 201 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new section:
`SEC. 225. TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES FOR HEARING-IMPAIRED AND SPEECH-IMPAIRED INDIVIDUALS.
`(a) DEFINITIONS- As used in this section--
`(1) COMMON CARRIER OR CARRIER- The term `common carrier' or `carrier' includes any common carrier engaged in interstate communication by wire or radio as defined in section 3(h), any common carrier engaged in intrastate communication by wire or radio, and any common carrier engaged in both interstate and intrastate communication, notwithstanding sections 2(b) and 221(b).
`(2) TDD- The term `TDD' means a Telecommunications Device for the Deaf, which is a machine that employs graphic communication in the transmission of coded signals through a wire or radio communication system.
`(3) TELECOMMUNICATIONS RELAY SERVICES- The term `telecommunications relay services' means telephone transmission services that provide the ability for an individual who has a hearing impairment or speech impairment to engage in communication by wire or radio with a hearing individual in a manner that is functionally equivalent to the ability of an individual who does not have a hearing impairment or speech impairment to communicate using voice communication services by wire or radio. Such term includes services that enable two-way communication between an individual who uses a TDD or other nonvoice terminal device and an individual who does not use such a device.
Let me repeat the crucial part here:
any common carrier engaged in intrastate communication by wire or radio
And what about this:
Such term includes services that enable two-way communication between an individual who uses a TDD or other nonvoice terminal device and an individual who does not use such a device.
How does that *not* fit the definition of the Internet?
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Free ammo indeed. How can I contribute?
"ADA - Got to hell, I'm sick of you BS whining you petty SOBs."
And I hope you never end up in a situation were the ADA could benefit you.