Shannon wrote:
The ONLY "business" justification I have for using alt tags is that a w3c valid site REQUIRES them and this may increase the sites Google rank (which is just speculation really). If you take the requirement out to use them on every image in a valid site then you take away much of my argument for using them at all.
In many juristictions, a company can face legal action if its website is not "accessible" per some standard or set of standards. This is the business justifaction I usually use; here in the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act[1] is the relevant reference.
[1]http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-accessibility/uk-website-legal-requirements.shtml
