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The Courts Government The Internet News

Appeals Court Says ADA Doesn't Cover the Web 47

Posted by michael from the need-a-seeing-eye-web-browser dept.
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."
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Appeals Court Says ADA Doesn't Cover the Web More

Appeals Court Says ADA Doesn't Cover the Web

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  • Other benefits of well-designed html documents (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rikus ( 765448 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @01:08PM (#10364581)
    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.
    • ...also mobile browsers.

      decently put out websites are readable on those as well.

      the funny thing about this of course is that it doesn't really take extra effort, just a bit of brains, to make the site so that it's readable on just about anything.
    • ...but since web designers often don't focus sufficiently on the information, regulations are perhaps necessary. This isn't dictating an exact format for a page. This is simply laying down some basic guidelines on top of which the web designer is free to do as he or she pleases. Just adding alt attributes to images and clearly defined form elements solves 99% of major accessibility issues. Compared to installing a concrete ramp as an alternate entrance/exit to a building, the cost of web accessibility i
    • If web designers focused more on the information they want to deliver rather than its appearance, this would be less of an issue.

      Tell that to the porn sites.
    • The main job of a web designer for a commercial site is to create something that is memorable for the end user. You want them to come back. Thats why you find these whiz bang filled pages with hundreds of images, table based layouts and seizure inducing flash animations.
      Once the HTML (or XHTML) spec is fully realized and utilized these type of accessibility issues won't be around. Properly (standardly) marked content is the way to go, so if you want to see Section 508 in the marketplace (the interet ma
  • 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.
    • and when I mean well, I screw up :)



      (i'm in the shrimp category)
    • 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.
      • Did you mean "on cases that MATTER to you?" Just because you don't happen to feel it's important, doesn't mean that it isn't important to someone. How else could they pursue a remedy. The court has now responded that the law does not apply, and interested parties can lobby to change the law.

        Personally I think a case could have been made that in the 'spirit of the law' accomodations should be made for the blind. Plus, it's just good design and business sense.

  • On the other hand... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 27, 2004 @01:10PM (#10364597)

    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.

  • A shame (Score:1, Insightful)

    by ttfkam ( 37064 )
    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

    • Re:A shame (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nharmon ( 97591 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @01:31PM (#10364848)
      Lunacy is interpreting a law that was intended to give disabled people access to buildings to mean a website has to be written a certain way.

      Please remember, that this could have freedom of speech implications. This would be like requiring protestors to talk a certain volume, because some in the audience may not hear what he/she is saying.

      As far as spirit of the law...since you can't tell me with 100% accuracy the spirit and intent of every congressman and senator who voted for this law, all we have to go on is the wording. And the wording does not support your position.

      • Re:A shame (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ttfkam ( 37064 )
        Blogs are not affected by this. This is not some cut and dried freedom of speech argument. Businesses have government-imposed limits all the time -- ADA guidelines for access into and out of a building for example. As far as free speech goes, businesses are not allowed to say that their hair dryer cures cancer. Is this an abridgement of free speech.

        Accessibility in (commercial) web sites is not restraining speech; it's adding more content. Accessibility is not about removing images. It's about adding
        • The job of the justice system is not to decide what the law should be, it's to decide what the law is.

          If the ADA was written so as not to be extensible to the Internet or other forms of new technology, then that's Congress' job to fix, not the courts'.
          • 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 availa
        • As far as free speech goes, businesses are not allowed to say that their hair dryer cures cancer. Is this an abridgement of free speech. No. A business is not afforded the rights granted to citizens, despite the legal fictions that are sometimes used in considering corporations.

    • Re:A shame (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pauljlucas ( 529435 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @01:48PM (#10365068) Homepage Journal
      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.
      Congress is free to amend the ADA by specifically adding a provision for the Internet. You're free to write your repsentatives to urge them to do it.
    • It isn't the job of the justice system to decide what the law should be. Its responsibility is to decide what the law is.

      If the Internet and other forms of new technology weren't included in the ADA, then that's a problem Congress has to deal with, not the courts.
    • the comparatively inexpensive addition of alt attributes to images and clearly defined form elements

      As someone who has been dealing with ADA compliance issues off and on all summer and will continue to deal with them for the next four or five months (please let it be done by then) let me just say that is just the tip of the iceberg.

      Before I continue on my rant, let me just say that 90% of the web sites where I work are made by an average office worker with frontpage or dreamweaver. That is to say, t
      • I've been wondering something for a while... JAWS [freedomscientific.com], one of the leading screen readers, costs $1100 for pro and $900 for standard. Is this a scam? Are they actually charging the blind this much? Does disability pick it up? I have this weird probably unjustified feeling that this company is making all of their money selling to government institutions that are being forced by regulations to buy their product.
      • 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 rath
        • I agree with you mostly about Flash and JavaScript taking as minimal a role as possible (although I have seen some nice content driven sites using flash). However, I know many designers feel like someone's just knocked their kneecaps out.

          You have some sympathy from me about the users of DreamWeaver and FrontPage, but since you are getting paid for it, not that much.

          Yeah, it is part of my job, and technically I do get paid (though it's a miniscule amount). On the other hand, it used to be only a ve

  • However... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by phraktyl ( 92649 ) * <wyatt@@@draggoo...com> on Monday September 27, 2004 @01:21PM (#10364741) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • Appeals Court DOESNT say ADA Doesn't Cover the Web (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bazzargh ( 39195 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @01:25PM (#10364793)
    .... 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).

    On the plus side, as the new theory was not judged on its merits, this doesn't form precedent.

    [1] asking /. 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".
  • 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... :)
    • ADAscript is not ADA!!! One is compiled to bytecode and then JustInTime-compiled and executed by a browser plugin, the other is interpreted by the browser itself.

      Oh, wait, I was getting confused with something else. Carry on.

  • Ignore headlines (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Piquan ( 49943 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @02:47PM (#10365732)
    In many newspapers, the headlines are written by somebody different than the story's author. The headline writer quickly skims the story, and puts down whatever he thinks will be good.

    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.

  • Oh for Christ Sakes (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I bet these ADA retards want the Mona Lisa modified to make it handicap accessable.

    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.

    Th
    • You Said:

      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..

      I think I found my new email tag!
    • Wrong, wrong, wrong.

      "Reasonable accomodation". Sure, it goes overboard occasionally, and there are disabled folks who are assholes - but there are no more of them than there are in the able-bodied community.

      As for the automotive garage, there are different levels of blindness, and there are ways to work around not being able to distinguish color. If the blind guy actually couldn't do the job, then the case would (most likely) be decided against him. I'm not familiar with the historical landmark cas
  • 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.

    • Maybe. The law is only requires that reasonable accommodations be made, it is up to the courts to decide what is reasonable. In general though it is obvious in most cases.

      If a wheelchair bound person applies for a job in a computer room they are required to make reasonable accommodations. My guess is that would come out to mean now, because while moving racks farther apart is reasonable, making them short enough so that they can be reached from a wheel chair is not.

      However that is only for the positi

  • H.R.2273

    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 sect

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