Web 2.0

Further to my post about Accessibility complaint against Arizona state university, Let us walk through some past incidences of accessibility lawsuits.

The accessibility case that introduced me to web accessibility was Sydney Olympics accessibility complaint by Bruce Maguire. This complaint was lodged under Disability Discrimination Act of Australia. The reason for the complaint was poor accessibility of the SOCOG website. SOCOG lost the case, reinforcing that  accessibility is essential and is not a difficult thing to achieve.

America online had to face the lawsuit due to inaccessibility of the client software which was required for accessing AOL services. The case got settled out of court when AOL promised accessibility of the AOL client software

Another lawsuit which made headlines is the complaint by NFB against the famous retailer Target.com. This case is particularly important because it is for the first time any court has formally accepted that the web is a place of public accommodation and Americans with disabilities act (ADA) applies even to websites and web properties. Target lawsuit became a class action suit. According to the NFB, the ruling sets a precedent establishing that retailers must make their Web sites accessible to the blind under ADA.

Web has come way ahead since inception and so are the disability laws, but it is really ironic that lawsuits are required to compel companies to build accessible websites. Laws are means to achieve justice but companies need not wait till someone sues them. Accessibility should neither be an afterthought nor a compulsion, but should come as a natural practice of web software life cycle.