[Promotion-technology] Court rules Target must make website accessible to the blind

[David Andrews]

>>> KARE11 TV, Minnesota USA
>>> Thursday, September 07, 2006
>>>
>>> Court rules Target must make website accessible to the blind
>>>
>>> A federal district court judge ruled Wednesday 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.
>>>
>>> The suit charges that Target's website ( http://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, a
>>> Berkeley-based non-profit law firm that specializes in high-impact cases
>>> on behalf of people with disabilities;
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> "This ruling is a great victory for blind people throughout the country,"
>>> said NFB President Dr. Marc Maurer. "We are pleased that the court
>>> recognized that the blind are entitled to equal access to retail
>>> websites."
>>>
>>> Dr. Maurer explained that blind persons access websites by using 
>>> keyboards
>>> in conjunction with screen-reading software, which vocalizes visual
>>> information on a computer screen.
>>>
>>> Target's website contains significant access barriers that prevent blind
>>> customers from browsing among and purchasing products online, as well as
>>> from finding important corporate information such as employment
>>> opportunities, investor news, and company policies.
>>>
>>> The plaintiffs charge that target.com fails to meet the minimum standard
>>> of web accessibility. It lacks compliant alt-text, an invisible code
>>> embedded beneath graphic images that allows screen readers to detect and
>>> vocalize a description of the image to a blind computer user. It also
>>> contains inaccessible image maps and other graphical features, preventing
>>> blind users from navigating and making use of all of the functions of the
>>> website. And because the website requires the use of a mouse to complete 
>>> a
>>> transaction, blind Target customers are unable to make purchases on
>>> target.com independently.
>>>
>>> Explaining the ramification of the ruling, Mazen M. Basrawi, Equal 
>>> Justice
>>> Works Fellow at Disability Rights Advocates, noted that: "the court
>>> clarified that the law requires that any place of public accommodation is
>>> required to ensure that it does not discriminate when it uses the 
>>> internet
>>> as a means to enhance the services it offers at a physical location."
>>>
>>> "I hope that I can soon shop online at Target.com just like anyone else,"
>>> said UC Berkeley student BJ Sexton, who is a named plaintiff in the
>>> lawsuit. "I believe that millions of blind people like me can use the
>>> Internet just as easily as do the sighted, if websites are accessible."
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.kare11.com/money/business_article.aspx?storyid=134062
>>>