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Target is being sued by the American National Federation for the Blind because of their inaccessible website.
federal district court judge ruled yesterday that a retailer may be sued if its website is inaccessible to the blind. The ruling was issued in a case brought by the National Federation of the Blind against Target Corp. (Northern District of California Case No. C 06-01802 MHP). The suit charges that Target’s website (www.target.com) is inaccessible to the blind, and therefore violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the California Unruh Civil Rights Act, and the California Disabled Persons Act. Target asked the court to dismiss the action by arguing that no law requires Target to make its website accessible. The Court denied Target’s motion to dismiss and held that the federal and state civil rights laws do apply to a website such as target.com.
The suit, NFB v. Target, was filed as a class action on behalf of all blind Americans who are being denied access to target.com. The named plaintiffs are the NFB, the NFB of California, and a blind college student, Bruce “BJ†Sexton.
The plaintiffs are represented by Disability Rights Advocates (www.dralegal.org), a Berkeley-based non-profit law firm that specializes in high-impact cases on behalf of people with disabilities; Brown, Goldstein & Levy (www.browngold.com), a leading civil rights law firm in Baltimore, Maryland; and Schneider & Wallace (www.schneiderwallace.com), a national plaintiff's class action and civil rights law firm based in San Francisco, CA.
The court held: “the ‘ordinary meaning’ of the ADA’s prohibition against discrimination in the enjoyment of goods, services, facilities or privileges, is that whatever goods or services the place provides, it cannot discriminate on the basis of disability in providing enjoyment of those goods and services.†The court thus rejected Target’s argument that only its physical store locations were covered by the civil rights laws, ruling instead that all services provided by Target, including its Web site, must be accessible to persons with disabilities.
I think that's a bit of a nieve comment don't you? It must be a joke... Accessablity in websites means a blind persons screen reader can properly narrate whats on the screen; it also means better functionality and compliancy with Mobile Browsers, and on PDAs, and also better Serach Engine Rankings.
Just because someonme is blind does not mean to say they can be deprived on the same resources and services we have easy access too.
lol come on tom you must know that your dont have to have your sight to use a computer. For example a story i read a while back on the BBC told of a women who was pazarlized from the neck down and basically could not move, speak etc actually used a computer (an Apple Mac) for everything, from shopping online, reading books, listening to music, staying in contact with families and even running her own website about her medical issue! Basically the computer had become apart of her and without a computer she would have lead a very boring life. She used specialist technology to use the computer because she could not move a muscle, literally!
So you see tom thats just one example of how people with disabilities use computers as part of their daily life. Getting back to the subject of blind people and computers, their are now thousands of people who use a computer and have sever loss of sight or no sight at all! They are able to use their computers using somthing called a screen reader, basically the screen reader does what it says on the tin, it reads the the screen! So when you go to say iVirtua.co.uk with a screen reader it will go, somthing like iVirtua, What is iVirtua? Help, Contact, Forums, Premium, etc. however when you go to Target.com the screen reader will not be able to pick any text up because the website has not been built to W3c standards and has not had any usability tests done for it.
At first i wondered why they had decided to sue target.com but when i saw who it is run by (amazon.com) it becomes a whole lot clearer, basically if big companies like amazon do not promote web standards and web site usabilty then what kind of an example is that going to set for the rest of the web community.
I hope now Tom that you understand why it is important that this case is going on and hopefully i have encouraged you to take another aproach (hopefully more tackfull) when it comes to the human rights and anyone's right to look at a website without not being able to view some of its pages because of your disabilty.
What a freaking nonsense, those blinds would fuck on target.com's accessability if the money the trial costs would instead in direct care and equipment.
Sam & applet gave some good comments on how and why this issue is important to blind people. I'm an associate member of the NFB (I'm not blind, but my wife was, and I learned to be a Braille transcriber), so I can add a little bit more. The NFB is the militant branch of blind organizations in the US. The presidents have all been lawyers (blind ones), and they are very proactive in all their activities, much like a labor union. My wife got her first professional job in part through their lobbying, and so even though her sight has been largely restored, she's still an ardent member.
BTW, screen readers are not the only way blind people can use the Internet. There are also Braille displays available, with pins that raise or lower as the dots are needed. And like the screen readers, they need sites to be adapted for their use. One thing I've not seen (yet) is any way for a blind person to use a mouse, so any webpage that has to depend on check-boxes is inaccessible to both screen readers and Braille displays.
wow thanks for your input owen, i really had no idea about Braille displays, what a great idea. I think Andurion your wrong, if people dont lobby against these big organisations then nothing will be done about it and people need to be aware of the issues of people with disabilties accessing content online. I really didn't know about the NFB so thanks owen for that info, i think larger companies should be questioned about the fact that their website's are inaccesiable to people with disabilties, do you know if theirs somewhere were website designes/owners can get information about how to make the website more friendly to people with disabilties, especially blind people? I know theirs the w3c but im think of more pro-active iniatives to get more people involved in this community from any background and disabilty.
Thanks for the input on braille displays; it just goes to prove what we are saying; and Andurion, I think you should read my post and inform yourself more;maybe put yourself in the place if a blind person.
Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) is the main law in the UK.
With more and more countries around the world passing laws about blind and disabled access to the Internet (including the Disability Discrimination Act in the UK), web accessibility has been thrown into the spotlight of the online community. This article attempt to put a stop to the misinformation that has been thrown around and tell you the truth behind web accessibility.
The WAI details what a site must do and the status of the UK laws.
The DDA was introduced with the intention of comprehensively tackling the discrimination which many disabled people face. The part of the DDA that states websites must be made accessible came into force on 1 October 1999 and the Code of Practice for this section of the Act was published on 27 May 2002.
There is alot about Access Technology, and for Access Technology to be used, sites should be usable/accessable.
Braille Display
Closed Circuit Televisions (CCTVs) or Video Magnifiers
Notetakers
A portable computer with a braille or QWERTY keyboard that gives speech feedback and allows the user to take notes, make appointments and some are email and internet enabled. They can also have an integrated braille display. Notetakers - further information.
Braille embosser or braille printer
Voice Recognition Software
Find out mre abut them on the RNIB site http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/PublicWebsite/public_rnib002927.hcsp
I can't say its dumb, far from it. It will raise the profile of Web Accessilbility, Which is very important. I won't accept comments that are descriminatory here on my site; The laws are not trivial, and they are pretty justified in my opinion.
When someone emails me saying they cant access my sites, then I will change it. I have been on many sites with images like I plan my KL to be and no complains!
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Accessablity in websites means a blind persons screen reader can properly narrate whats on the screen; it also means better functionality and compliancy with Mobile Browsers, and on PDAs, and also better Serach Engine Rankings.
