A federal district court judge has ruled that commercial Web sites operated by brick-and-mortar retailers must be accessible to the blind. The ruling does not cover Web-only retailers but pressure is building on Congress to close that loophole.
U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled in a case brought by Bruce Sexton, Jr., a blind University of California-Berkeley student, against Target. Sexton charged that Target's Web site violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because it is not fully navigable by the blind. His suit seeks class-action status.
"This ruling is a great victory for blind people throughout the country," said National Federation of the Blind President Dr. Marc Maurer. "We are pleased that the court recognized that the blind are entitled to equal access to retail websites."
"We tried to convince Target that it should do the right thing and make its website accessible through negotiations," said Dr. Maurer. "It is unfortunate that Target took the position that it does not have to take the rights of the blind into account. The ruling in this case puts Target and other companies on notice that the blind cannot be treated like second class citizens on the Internet or in any other sphere."
Sexton argued that Target.com lacks proper "alt" tags, which provide brief text descriptions of images and other Web page components. Without the alt tags, computerized screen readers can't properly describe the contents of a Web page to a visually-impaired user.
The suit charges that Target.com's tags are sometimes misleading or incorrect, and sometimes missing entirely.
In its defense, Target argued that the ADA did not apply because its Web site was not a "place of public accommodation" as defined by the ADA. But Patel said the Web site was a "gateway" service provided by Target's brick-and-mortar stores, and therefore covered by the ADA.
Judge Patel's ruling is the first of its kind and could result in national and local retailers having to do a top-to-bottom rebuilding of their Web sites to accommodate visually-impaired users.
Other suits have settled, partly because the Justice Department in 1996 issued a legal opinion that the ADA applies to the Web. AOL agreed a few years ago to make its sites fully navigable for the visually-impaired, as did Priceline.com and Ramada Hotels when challenged by New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer.
Observers were quick to note that Web-only retailers like eBay and Amazon.com would not have to comply, since they do not have brick-and-mortar stores. Lobbying groups for the disabled are expected to take that issue up with the next session of Congress.
