This is a forward of a forward.  I've removed the greater than signs,
and the signatures at the bottom.

Steve


Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 19:09:42 -0700
From: Andy Baracco <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [gui-talk] ccb-l Fwd: ADA Does Not Require Internet to be
    Accessible

FYI.

Disabilities Act doesn't cover Web

By
Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
October 21, 2002, 11:17 AM PT

A federal judge ruled Friday that Southwest Airlines does not have to revamp
its Web site to make it more accessible to the blind.

In the first case of its kind, U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz said the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies only to physical spaces such
as restaurants and movie theaters and not to the Internet.

"To expand the ADA to cover 'virtual' spaces would be to create new rights
without well-defined standards," Seitz wrote in a 12-page
opinion
dismissing the case. "The plain and unambiguous language of the statute and
relevant regulations does not include Internet Web sites."

Click here.

If Southwest had lost this case, and the decision had been upheld on
appeal, the outcome would have had far-reaching effects by imposing broad
new requirements on companies hoping to do business online.

Access Now, an advocacy group for the blind, and a blind man named Robert
Gumson filed the lawsuit in an attempt to compel Southwest to redesign its
Web site to make it easier for blind people to navigate. They admitted
that it was possible for the blind to buy tickets on Southwest's site, but
argued it was "extremely difficult."

Gumson, who said he had a screen reader with a voice synthesizer on his
computer, asked the judge to order Southwest to provide text that could
serve as an alternative to the graphics on its site and to redesign the
site's navigation bar to make it easier for him to understand. He and his
lawyers also asked for attorneys fees and costs.

The ADA says that any "place of public accommodation" must be accessible
to people with disabilities. The law, enacted in 1990, lists 12
categories, including hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, universities
and bowling alleys.

Seitz said that because Congress was so careful to specify what kinds of
physical spaces are covered by the ADA, it's clear the act does not apply
to the Internet. She noted that the World Wide Web Consortium had drafted
accessibility guidelines, but said the document was over three years old
and there is no indication that the guidelines are "a generally accepted
authority."


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