Online Reach of Disabilities Law Is Hard to Grasp

Computerworld - Advocates for the blind often say that they prefer collaboration over lawsuits to try to get companies to make their Web sites more accessible. The less adversarial approach is more likely to produce the intended results, some claim.

But that strategy also makes pragmatic sense, because there currently are no clear-cut legal decisions for advocacy groups to stand behind.

The U.S. Department of Justice has suggested in legal briefs filed in support of private lawsuits that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) does apply to Web sites that are operated by businesses or companies that serve the public, as defined by Title III of the ADA, although the agency has taken no enforcement action thus far. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer did two years ago, reaching out-of-court settlements with Priceline.com Inc. and Cendant Corp.'s Ramada Franchise Systems Inc. hotels unit, both of which promised to adopt a variety of the World Wide Web Consortium's accessibility standards.

But courts have sent mixed signals about whether the ADA requires companies to offer features that can help people with disabilities use their virtual stores, such as tags for alternative text or accessible image maps. Retailer Target, in defending itself against the lawsuit filed by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), claimed that previous legal decisions support its position that the ADA doesn't apply to commercial Web sites.

In its legal filings, the retailer noted that Congress in 1998 amended Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act to require that Web sites maintained by federal agencies and contractors be accessible to people with disabilities. But Target said federal lawmakers haven't taken similar steps to amend the ADA so it applies to private-sector sites, despite a hearing held in 2000 to explore the issue.

However, Daniel Goldstein, an attorney in Baltimore who is representing the NFB, claimed that the hearing was held in reaction to a suit that the Baltimore-based federation had filed against America Online Inc. The question under consideration was whether to amend the ADA so it would no longer cover the Internet, he said.

Even though the ADA doesn't specifically mention Web sites, the law has played a role in prompting changes to the sites of some major banks. Lainey Feingold, a private lawyer in Berkeley, Calif., has helped broker Web accessibility agreements with eight banks over the past six years on behalf of affiliates of the American Council of the Blind and various blind individuals.

Some sort of "hammer" was needed to get the banks to the negotiating table, and the ADA served as that tool, according to Feingold. She said that she points to the law "right there in the front page of the letter" that she sends to companies as she tries to kick-start the structured negotiation process.