LTTStore.com soon to be ADA(AA) compliant? - US Supreme court allows blind people to sue online shops if their website is not accessible

[rcmaehl]

Source:

CNBC
LATimes

 

Summary:
The US Supreme Court has chosen to allow a lower court ruling that the Americans with Disabilities Act (As Amended), protects access to websites and apps, not just stores and restaurants

 

Quotes/Excerpts:

Quote

The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for blind people to sue...retailers if their websites are not accessible to these people. The justices turned down an appeal from Domino’s and let stand a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling holding that the Americans With Disabilities Act protects access not just to restaurants and stores, but also to the websites and apps of those businesses. Guillermo Robles, who is blind, filed suit in Los Angeles three years ago and complained he had been unable to order a pizza online because the Domino’s website lacked the software that would allow him to communicate. He cited the ADA, which guarantees to persons with a disability “full and equal enjoyment the goods and services ... of any place of public accommodations.” Last year, however, the 9th Circuit ruled for Robles and said the law applied to its online services as well as the stores. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and business groups who said they represented 500,000 restaurants and 300,000 businesses joined in an appeal urging the high court to review the 9th Circuit’s decision. They complained of a “tsunami of litigation” and worried that judges nationwide would see the appeals court’s decision as “imposing a nationwide website-accessibility mandate.” But without comment or dissent on Monday, the high court said it would not hear the case of Domino’s Pizza vs. Robles. This is not a formal ruling upholding the 9th Circuit decision, and the justices could agree to take up the issue later if lower courts are divided. But for now, the court’s action strongly suggests that retailers will be required to make their websites accessible. Mark Whitley, president of Eastseals Southern California, praised the high court for “supporting the values by which the ADA was built upon.” Domino’s and the National Retail Federation issued statements saying they were disappointed in the court’s refusal to hear the case.

 

My Thoughts:
While I get where the ADA complaint is coming from, I am a terribly upset that additional groundwork wasn't set forth to prevent troll lawsuits. I've read horror stories of troll ADA complaints from newspapers to reddit's legaladvice sub and it's definitely not fun. This can easily be abused with automated detection of potentially infringing websites by detecting those using old, not screen-ready friendly content (looking at you Flash), and become mass troll lawsuits easily. Regardless, hopefully some good with come with this with the removal of more user-unfriendly site content (once again, looking at you Flash)

[Ruffleduffle]

arent there good tts tools out there for those ppl? also flash is dead

[rcmaehl]

1 minute ago, Ruffleduffle said:

also flash is dead

That's what Flash wants you to think

 

1 minute ago, Ruffleduffle said:

arent there good tts tools out there for those ppl?

Some TTS is good but there can be a variety of site elements that can be images instead of text that some TTS software is very poor at (hopefully Machine Learning can improve this though)

[Ruffleduffle]

2 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

Some TTS is good but there can be a variety of site elements that can be images instead of text that some TTS software is very poor at (hopefully Machine Learning can improve this though)

i cant think it would be to difficult with pictures and stuff since there are really good ocr tools out there, just couple that with a tts and boom

[givingtnt]

Making websites accessible is a fundamental thing that should be followed by all.

But I guess some people do cut corners..

[ARikozuM]

Windows has a Narrator functions that works pretty well...

 

I can see why, and stand with the ability to have these profitable corporations cater to groups of people, but I really hope this isn't about filing lawsuit after lawsuit. 

[Arika]

But it's the ADA, this can't govern websites based in other countries can it? Isn't LTT Store a canadian website?

[rcmaehl]

1 minute ago, Arika S said:

But it's the ADA, this can't govern websites based in other countries can it? Isn't LTT Store a canadian website?

I'm sure a case could be made that by selling to US customers, and accepting US currency, they are operating within the US.

[cj09beira]

i can't imagine using sites while blind could ever be usable out side of things like wikipidia, a blind on ebay for example is a recipe for disaster, its already hard enough with both my eyes

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

But it's the ADA, this can't govern websites based in other countries can it? Isn't LTT Store a canadian website?

LMG is a Canadian company, but whether this affects the store is dependent most likely on where the site is hosted - I know the forums are hosted in a US data centre. 
 

And although AODA (Canadian version of ADA) compliant websites aren’t mandatory for retail, it’s still good practice. 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, rcmaehl said:

That's what Flash wants you to think

From what I've heard Flash can survive a nuclear blast, Flash cannot be killed 

[williamcll]

How would this site change to accommodate?

[leadeater]

19 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Flash died a few times.  Crisis on Infinite Earths is just one example.

When you make a cockroach joke but it unknowingly works better as a DC comic joke 

[Rune]

Microsoft has an accessibility tool specifically for this use, no?

[silberdrachi]

Working in the government contracting sector we have to ensure section 508 compliance on literally everything we develop. Even things that literally only 1 person in the world has access to and i have met in person and know for a fact they are not blind nor deaf nor colorblind, nor any of the other provisions. It is interesting that the ruling stopped short of mandating the same coverage as section 508.

 

508 compliance is a HUGE drain on resources not just in developing it but in testing and maintaining it. It doesnt help that every browser and every text reader works off a different non-standard system too.

 

While i agree that allowing easy access for disabled people is always great, forcing small companies or small projects to support that right out of the gate is a hell of a hurdle to jump through. Id be interested to see how they actually intend to enforce it as well. Just having the SC say something doesnt mean it magically means that the world changes.

[Thaldor]

I can see where ADA is coming from and why it's important in US. I have also made an image in my head from US court system and this ruling really does fit in it because someone is going to make HUGE amounts of money from this and this ruling is also dumb as boot because of that.

Everyone can probably see that mom & pops shop, that made a web page back in the early 2000's as part of marketing campaign that was so cool and needful by the summer intern, getting sued by blind identifying scammer... person and loosing $50,000,000 because this kind of stupidy just is possible.

[Salv8 (sam)]

5 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

That's what Flash wants you to think

good thing wikipedia has got TTS down e.g here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOPIu7isD3s

[VanayadGaming]

Do people really think that US legislation extends to other countries regardless? I mean seriously.

[porina]

53 minutes ago, VanayadGaming said:

Do people really think that US legislation extends to other countries regardless? I mean seriously.

That has never stopped us.gov form sticking its nose into foreign affairs. That makes me wonder, whatever happened to kim dotcom and megaupload... I think the short version is, if you have any connection to the US whatsoever, however tenuous, they can use that to have a go at you if you upset them enough.

[dalekphalm]

4 hours ago, VanayadGaming said:

Do people really think that US legislation extends to other countries regardless? I mean seriously.

I don’t think people think that. However, if you operate your business out of the US (eg, host a retail site off of American web servers or inside an American data centre), you are subject to US laws for that content. Full stop. 

[DeScruff]

This is honestly something I never thought about... how does one make a website accessible to blind people?

Im guessing formatting things with actual text so a narrator program to see and read it, rather then having that text in a image file or something. And I guess making your website able to be navigate with Tab? - Which has always been ridiculous way to do things if you ask me.

[dalekphalm]

20 minutes ago, Sypran said:

This is honestly something I never thought about... how does one make a website accessible to blind people?

Im guessing formatting things with actual text so a narrator program to see and read it, rather then having that text in a image file or something. And I guess making your website able to be navigate with Tab? - Which has always been ridiculous way to do things if you ask me.

Things like having alternate text for images that explain to the blind person what image he's supposed to see, etc.

 

There's a shitload of different compliance levels. Here's the AODA compliance lists from Ontario:

https://www.ontario.ca/page/how-make-websites-accessible

 

ADA would be very similar.

[rcmaehl]

3 hours ago, Sypran said:

This is honestly something I never thought about... how does one make a website accessible to blind people?

Im guessing formatting things with actual text so a narrator program to see and read it, rather then having that text in a image file or something. And I guess making your website able to be navigate with Tab? - Which has always been ridiculous way to do things if you ask me.

 

3 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Things like having alternate text for images that explain to the blind person what image he's supposed to see, etc.

 

There's a shitload of different compliance levels. Here's the AODA compliance lists from Ontario:

https://www.ontario.ca/page/how-make-websites-accessible

 

ADA would be very similar.

 

You all also have to remember that legally blind is different from physically blind. You can still see but be blind in the eyes of the law.

[yolosnail]

But how are blind people supposed to know the website isn't 'accessible' when they can't see the website?

 

Spoiler

/s

 

[mxk]

On 10/7/2019 at 4:43 PM, Ruffleduffle said:

arent there good tts tools out there for those ppl? also flash is dead

noooo I still use flash for games on my chromebook