NFB v Target is going forward; Target’s motion to dismiss was denied.
As Joe Clark points out, this does not mean the battle is over, by any means. And it’s more than a bit premature for the DRA to make rather broad pronouncements (link is PDF) about legal precedents. The case simply isn’t far enough along for that.
IANAL, but as I read the decision (link is PDF), part of the NFB claim was dismissed, the judge referred to other cases (Access Now v Southwest) in a manner which seems to favor Target, if anything, and the judge repeatedly called for more evidence and more discovery. That doesn’t spell out precedent to me. In fact, the “precedent” cited on the DRA’s web site–the bit starting with “ordinary meaning”–looks like a reference to an earlier decision to me.
I’m glad the case was not dismissed. But there’s not nearly as much to cheer about here as the DRA press release implies.
I haven’t been following the case, and I didn’t read the pdf of the decision, but I’m wondering how Amazon.com might be implicated (or not) in this case. Amazon sells Target’s merchandise on their website, which is accessible I believe. And doesn’t Amazon run Target.com for Target?
Very good questions. My guess is that even though they are the software vendor, I guess, Amazon.com is not involved; they aren’t mentioned at all in any of the documentation I’ve read surrounding the case.
John Slatin began Maximum Accessibility with a description of trying to use Amazon.com with a screen reader. It’s pretty interesting stuff.
Viewing the source of the Amazon.com site shows a separate “accessible” version—but the link to it is hidden from most browsers (it is wrapped around a transparent pixel and will only appear as alt text). So a partially sighted user who uses a magnifier, or someone with a motor disability who uses keyboard-only or a sip-and-puff device, might miss the alternative version.
On very cursory review, there are some problems with this site (form labels, invalid HTML (wtf is “”?), questionable alt tags). So I’m not sure I’d call Amazon.com accessible, at least not this version of it.
I’ll have to ask some of our blind students what they think of it…
So, speaking of accessibility and amazon.com, I went to amazon today, and Joe Clark’s Building Accessible Websites was in the list of recommend books. This is fine and all, but wtf is up with the cover? What’s with the goatse? At least your blind students aren’t subjected to this horror.
I remember reading somewhere that Clark claimed the cover’s resemblance was coincidence. Ha ha….