Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if their websites are not accessible

The dominoes case actually has some merit. The prices online or in the app are cheaper than when calling by phone and most of the online vouchers can't be applied verbally by phone due to the way the system works even if the managers wanted to, which ends up being discriminatory if the website or app isn't usable by that customer.

 

It's not crazy or frivolous to expect a certain level of compatibility, and to strive for the best accessibility possible, wherever possible. I don't think anyone disagrees with the principle of striving to ensure their sites and businesses are accessible. The problem arises when precedent is set that it's possible to sue a business based on a requirement in the ADA.

It's a long standing existing problem that there are litigious trolls out there, similar to patent trolls, that go after small businesses in particular to try and extract money from them because they're not fully ADA compliant.

If these ends up propagating to websites, what's going to happen to smaller companies that don't have the budget to spend tens of thousands of dollars or more on their website to ensure it's specked out to the highest degree of compliance? What happens to companies that want to push the boundaries of web technologies or be particularly creative with the design and UI?

If companies are stifled from doing this because they're worried someone might sue them for not being 100% compliant, then we'll all end up stuck on cookie cutter Wordpress and Squarespace and Shopify sites because they're the only companies that are going to invest the resources in ensuring their sites are compliant while being affordable to smaller businesses.

Dominoes screwed themselves and everyone else over on this accessibility issue because it was all about the ability to place an order. They already had a telephone system for accepting orders, a perfectly accessible way for a blind person to patronise their business, but they discriminated against them by not giving them the same deal as those using the website.

 

What's funny about this comment is that Apple and iOS are industry leading in mobile phone and computing accessibility enabling many users with disabilities to compute and use the internet and software/apps through mobile devices better than ever before, and frequently better than their desktop counterparts.

They have excellent text to speech, voice dictation, magnifying tools, font controls, accessible readable colour schemes, colour filtering, direct braille entry without the use of a braille display, use of a braille display for both input and output and more.

Software in every other industry has blazed ahead on mobile because it's often very well executed and it can be done in an accessible way. That's part of the source of frustration for those that call for better forum mobile compatibility. It's possible to do and it can be a great experience.

https://www.apple.com/uk/accessibility/

https://www.apple.com/uk/accessibility/iphone/

https://www.apple.com/uk/accessibility/iphone/vision/

Voice Over
Voice Control Text
Voice Control App/Switch Control

 

Yeah, I don't disagree with where you're coming from, in a perfect world all sites would be fully accessible. I'm just highlighting the fact that if this issues isn't handled correctly it could up negatively impacting a large number of businesses who may already be doing their best, but may not be able to comply depending on the technology they're using. If it's structured in such a way that trolls are able to file frivolous lawsuits against sites, as they have done when it comes to physical premises.

Most of these cases are against good, well meaning business owners, but they didn't execute things perfectly and so they are then taken advantage of by teams of lawyers resulting in lots of lost money over claims they should never have been filed in the first place.

These business owners getting sued by the trolls aren't wilfully flaunting the act because they don't care, they're often very willing and trying to comply, but haven't complied completely for one reason or another, sometimes due to restrictions they don't have much control over which leaves them exposed to abuse of the law.

I used to live in a residential home as a kid as my mother ran one. It was a small one with only about 12 beds. The health and safety regulations and requirements ended up getting completely out of control. They wanted her to install a ludicrously expensive dedicated lift system among countless other things that were completely unnecessary to a smaller home like hers, when the stair lift and other systems she had in place worked perfectly well and there were no complaints from staff or residents.

All these demands and new regulations kept pouring in over the years and eventually it became too much for a small business like hers to handle. She had to close up shop. Her local inspector and the family of the residents begged her not to close as she ran one of the cleanest and well regarded residential homes in the county. And it was, I lived there every day, it didn't reek of piss like most other residential homes you go to and it was beautifully well kept and the residents well cared for. But slowly these regulations choked this small business who was doing everything they could to comply and was running a great business to the best of their ability.


So when I see stuff like this it makes me so frustrated and disgusted that Dominoes were so belligerent in their case. In their case they were having a real impact on their visually impaired users on their website. I obviously think they should still fix it and make it accessible, but they could have at least let them order by phone for the same price for an instant solution to the situation while they worked on it or made an alternative accessible version.

Hopefully the net result will be beneficial and more sites will take it seriously, I just have a feeling the trolls may end up out in force with this one to abuse it if we're not careful.

 

it seems some vultures are already starting to pounce, will be interesting to see what comes of some of this initial wave of litigation

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