[real-eyes] NFB Victory: Class Certified in Target Class-Action Lawsuit
- From: "Jim Fettgather" <jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2007 22:11:47 -0500
>
>Lawsuit seeks to improve website access by the blind
>A judge's ruling in a suit against Target could mean that businesses and
>government
>agencies would have to make their sites compatible with screen-reading
>software.
>By Molly Selvin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
>1:52 PM PDT, October 3, 2007
>A ruling by a judge in San Francisco could mean that businesses and
>government agencies
>would have to make their websites accessible to the blind, something
>disability rights
>advocates say is vital as the routine transactions of everyday life take
>place more
>and more on the Internet.
>U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel granted class-action status Tuesday
>to a lawsuit
>alleging that Target Corp. is in violation of California and federal laws
>because
>its website doesn't work with screen-reading software, essentially making
>the site
>unusable for blind people.
>To comply, Target would have to tag product images on its site with word
>descriptions,
>allowing the software to "read" those images aloud.
>FOR THE RECORD:
>An earlier version of this article identified John Pare as an executive of
>the National
>Foundation of the Blind. The organization is the National Federation of the
>Blind.
>Many retailers, including Wal-Mart Inc. and Amazon.com, have upgraded their
>websites
>or are in the process of doing so, said John Pare, executive director for
>strategic
>initiatives for the National Federation of the Blind. Most companies have
>done so
>voluntarily, he said, in response to concerns raised by the 50,000-member
>foundation.
>The lawsuit contends that some 10,000 people in California alone use
>reading software
>to access the Internet.
>Target, in a statement, said its online business had made "significant
>enhancements
>to improve the experience of our guests who use assistive technologies."
>The company,
>based in Minneapolis, said it would request an immediate review of the
>judge's ruling.
>The ability to access websites is particularly important to the visually
>impaired,
>whose mobility is limited because they can't drive, said Eve Hill,
>executive director
>of the Disability Rights Legal Center at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
>Judges have applied California's disability accommodations law more broadly
>than
>the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, Hill said; the federal law
>focuses on
>access to physical locations such as stores or banks.
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