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Proposed ADA Requirements May Affect Public Internet Use
An anonymous reader writes "The Associated Press is reporting on federal officials who want to expand the application of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to require accommodations by public websites, call centers, and technology providers. Hearings are scheduled in Chicago, Washington, and San Francisco. New rules could be implemented as soon as 2012. 'For more than a decade, the Justice Department has interpreted the ADA to apply to websites that offer goods and services. But now that idea could be clarified, and timetables for compliance could be set. ... The Justice Department is considering making it clear that some personal, noncommercial content would not be affected.'"
Mandating companies to take reasonable measures to accommodate the needs of disabled patrons when the market can't is part of belonging to a civilized society.
I don't think requiring businesses to foot unprofitable costs, when there is no negative impact to the public at large is reasonable.
As an example, air scrubbers at chemical plants are costly, but they benefit the entire public by not destroying the environment near the plant so people don't live on chemical polluted lands. Everyone benefits from this. However, in the case of these LED CC projectors, which the business may not recuperate the purchase cost to install because of the limited demographic, and also not having LED CC projectors doesn't negatively impact the public welfare so why should closed caption projectors be mandatory?
You don't live in a utopia where everyone can be happy all the time and have all of their needs magically taken care of. This is real life. Businesses don't exist to make people pleasant even at the cost of turning an operating cost loss. They aren't fucking charities.
Is life harder for handicapped people? Yes. Do I "feel" for them? Yeah. Do I think we should make sure they have equal access to mandatory life services? Yup. These whiners need to grow up and realize their disability might limit some things they can do, since that's exactly what a disability is. Welcome to reality, everyone isn't dealt the same hand. Some people have poverty to deal with. Other people have suffer from physical abuse. Etc. Etc. The majority of people have their own hardships to overcome, it isn't the responsibility of private enterprise to try and make up for it.
Small businesses aren't hiring because big businesses have effectively muscled them out of most markets. Any business that has put a good faith effort into complying with the ADA up to this point has little to worry about. Because most of the things that are likely to result in a suit would already be taken care of.
It's a bullshit argument used by conservatives to imply that regulations are the cause of the uncertainty, when the reality is that it's the incompetence of the Federal reserve and the conservative politicians bending over backwards appease the multinational corporations.
It's kind of like demanding laser light shows, and art like the Mona Lisa be modified so blind people can perceive the artistic creative vision, or altered by suppressing all visual elements so non-blind people cannot have better access
Yes, because improving the access for the blind requires hurting everyone else. Or, it could be more like the DVD options for the vision impaired where sighted people get the DVD without any reductions, and the vision impaired select the audio track that includes a description of the on-screen events. That improves access for the vision impaired while not hurting the experience for any sighted person.
But no, that'll never happen, we'll have to modify the original for everyone, damaging it because that fits your irrational, illogical, and anti-reality notions because you apparently hate anyone that doesn't have exactly the capabilities you have.
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