A federal judge has ruled that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to the Internet, a ruling that could have profound effects on bridging the digital divide for people with disabilities -- at least regarding resources in the USA. A press release from the National Federation of the Blind offers more details: <http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060907/cgth051.html?.v=55>http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060907/cgth051.html?.v=55
Here's an excerpt from the press release: BERKELEY, Calif., Sept. 7 -- A 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 ( <http://www.target.com/>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 (<http://www.dralegal.org/>http://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 ( <http://www.browngold.com/>http://www.browngold.com ), a leading civil rights law firm in Baltimore, Maryland; and Schneider & Wallace (<http://www.schneiderwallace.com/>http://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. 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 ccommodation 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." -- <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Ms. Jayne Cravens MSc Bonn, Germany Services for Nonprofits/NGOs/Civil Society www.coyotecommunications.com International & Development Studies & Work www.coyotecommunications.com/development Contact me www.coyotecommunications.com/contact.html www.ivisit.com id: jcravens.4947 <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
