Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 23:22:54 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Mike Meyer" <mwm@mired.org>, <advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks Message-ID: <001a01c16501$8514f380$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <15332.41849.327680.753795@guru.mired.org>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Mike Meyer >Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2001 6:10 PM >To: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG; chat@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: NatWest? no thanks > > >Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> types: >> At 05:30 PM 11/3/2001, Mike Meyer wrote: >> A suit is rarely even filed. For example, a DoJ team came to our >> local City Hall not long ago and demanded all sorts of >> accommodations, some of them unreasonable. No suit was filed >> and it didn't even make the papers. > >It probably made the DoJ ADA enforcement newsletter, which tracks such >things, and included - as of last May - exactly one case involving a >web site. The DoJ's conclusion is the one that I quote, which is that >there is *still* no firm decision as to whether or not the ADA applies >to commercial web sites. > >If you have real evidence, I'd very much like to see it. If all you >have is the opinion you've been repeating, I'll continue taking the >DoJ's over yours. > Let me throw in my $0.02 here: 1) Could you guys retitle this thread "ADA Website access" or something? NatWest disappeared a long time ago. Don't get me wrong I'm interested in how it comes out. 2) Getting back to NatWest, where is the evidence that IE is not blind accessible? For the sake of argument assume that ADA applies to commercial websites - well even if it did, it seems to me that there would only be grounds to sue if IE somehow could not be make blind-accessible. After all, consider a porno website - blind people aren't consumers of pornographic images and thus there is no access issue here, thus to make IE blind-accessible it would seem that all that would be necessary is to attach a braille terminal and get IE to work with it. Since blind people cannot by definition consume images, all that a braille terminal need display on a website is the textual information on the site. It may be cynical to say this but wouldn't it be cheaper if someone like AOL was sued for access problems, for them to simply work with Microsoft and release a blind-enabled IE than to redesign their many websites. Not only would it be cheaper but also profitable. 3) Even if there was a US Supreme Court ruling that mandated ADA for commercial websites, how would it apply if the website content was not about something that a blind person can use. For example, consider a Hewlett Packard HP Laserjet 4+. This device has a front panel that is triggered by buttons and used to select options on the printer. Depending on the option cards and SIMMS stuck in the printer the menues shown on the front panel are different. To get the printer options one must issue a test page that prints on a non-braille printout. Thus, there is no possible way that even if a blind person has all possible permutations of a LaserJet 4+ front panel menu memorized, plus all the buttons, that he or she can walk up to a HP Laserjet 4+ that he has never seen or used before and select options via the front panel because he has no way of knowing what menus will be displayed. Now, suppose I'm HP and operating under an ADA mandate, and I put out documentation for the HP Laserjet 4+ front panel on my website. Well, what possible use is it to make this documentation blind-accessible, because a blind person cannot use the front panel anyway even if they could read the docs, without assistance of a sighted person? Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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