https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/accessibility-the-future-and-why-dominos-matters/
The US Supreme Court last week formally declined to weigh in on an argument that the Americans with Disabilities Act should not apply to websites and digital storefronts, leaving intact a lower ruling finding that the ADA does, indeed, apply to digital space. Internet and Web users with disabilities, as well as advocates for accessible design, are breathing a sigh of relief.
[...] The case the Court declined to hear, Domino's v Robles, stemmed from a 2016 lawsuit. Guillermo Robles, a blind California resident who uses screen readers to access the Internet, tried to place an order through Domino's mobile app. Neither the app nor Domino's website proved usable by a screen reader, and Robles eventually sued the company, arguing the site's inaccessibility violated his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The section of the ADA at question is Title III, which says, in part, that you can't discriminate against an individual on the basis of disability "in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases, or operates a place of public accommodation."
[...] About 61 million US adults, roughly one in four, live with some kind of disability, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The point of the ADA is to prevent discrimination against a quarter of the population and to codify the need for reasonable accommodations.
[...] "Here's what's shocking about Domino's: like Target [in 2008], just fixing the problem costs a great deal less than suing. So they were suing for the right to discriminate," Quesenbery told Ars.
(Score: 2, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday October 22 2019, @05:18AM (4 children)
Fuych Dominoes! They are a Republican political operation pretending to make pies! They were evil well before Papa John's and even more evil for having a sailing boat that they held out as a bait for poor lowly sub-minimum wage employees, as if they could afford a yacht. Trump-level deception, class-actionable malfeaseance. Malificent level evil, without the fairies to protect. Just a earlier version of Adam Neumann, scum-sucker extrodanaire! Invest now, before it is too late! Of course, for cardboard pizza venders like Dominoes, and Chik-Fil-a, it is too late. Sooner or later the politics of the owners poison the product. This is why I, for one, will not contract TMB code. The political blow-back risk is just too grate.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday October 22 2019, @06:14AM (2 children)
They are a Republican political operation pretending to make pies!
Is there a Dominosgate [Hansel and Gretel Edition] in your crystal balls?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22 2019, @10:58AM (1 child)
I'm sure he doesn't have any balls.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Tuesday October 22 2019, @01:54PM
Don't be silly. They are dodecahedrons.
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 22 2019, @11:18AM
No worries. I'm pretty sure you'd be one of those real pain in the ass clients anyway.
Something important you missed though: Domino's can currently provide at least two filling (and quite nutritious compared to what a lot of folks eat) meals for an adult male for eight bucks plus tax. Better value for women and kids. That is not to be sneezed at.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 22 2019, @05:34AM (4 children)
I mean... look, the only rational reason one would order from Domino is the chance to sue them for discrimination.
But I'm not disabled and thus I have no grounds to sue (besides, I like my local pizza shop, the Sicilians there make good pizza and offers I can't refuse).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22 2019, @09:17AM (2 children)
You sure? When was the last time you added anchovies?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 22 2019, @10:21AM
You meant to ask 'when was the last offer I couldn't refuse in spite of having anchovies on top'? (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 22 2019, @01:56PM
I made it expressly clear that I didn't want any anchovies on my tacos.
They looked at me like I was crazier than I actually am.
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 22 2019, @11:21AM
I dig the hell out of my local proper pizzeria as well but they cost more than twice as much for the same size pie. So it kind of depends on if I just want inexpensive food that I didn't have to cook or if I want a really good pizza as to which I'm going to go with.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday October 22 2019, @11:11AM (1 child)
Lot of corporate behavior is stupid in just this fashion. Some would amputate a leg to resolve a case of foot fungus.
It could also be a matter of their lawyers keeping themselves employed. Wonder what kind of insane crap they have in their employment contract? Pizza delivery workers are, what, contractors, and have to sign a non-compete? And are paid $2.80/hour because they get tips? And they have to clock out between deliveries?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 22 2019, @11:26AM
Not around here. They make low, but above minimum wage, hourly wages but they also get tips if they do delivery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22 2019, @01:17PM (6 children)
Because they haven't accommodated the blind so they can drive a car.
Give me a fucking break... Domino's has a phone number you can call to order pizza. Instead, some ADA troll decides to sue them because the website isn't in braille. Those trolls drive by shops and sue them for non-ADA compliance without even entering the shop.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 22 2019, @01:59PM (4 children)
They could accommodate the blind. If they really wanted to. The first step would be for their lazy web designer to stop stalling and come up with a good color scheme that works well in braille.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22 2019, @03:15PM (3 children)
You're missing the point. Pick up a smart phone and say "Call Domino's pizza" and order a pizza. Instead, some asshat decides he wants to use something that his disability restricts him from doing, so he sues because it was more inconvenient than simply calling.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 22 2019, @05:19PM (2 children)
You're missing the joke about a braille color scheme for the web.
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22 2019, @06:29PM
That's for blind people who are colorblind. It's a new disability.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23 2019, @11:34AM
That joke was fricking awesome. So stealing it the next time someone brings up WCAG :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23 2019, @12:00AM
And what if you are in a place where you can't just yak on the phone? The fact of the matter is that it is really easy to make websites accessible. Just label what things are and proper tags instead of divs everywhere with automatically generated names and ids. Just use descriptive links ("order pizza [soylentnews.org]" not "to blah, blah, click here [soylentnews.org]) and <label> for inputs. Use alt on your images, proper contrasts, proper flow. It really is just the basics, but people want things fast and cheap and could give to shits about others.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 22 2019, @02:02PM (2 children)
Americans with Disabilities. They are like, ENTITLED to participate in society. We read about so many entitlements that are pretty much nonsense, but this is one I can get behind. No one likes to feel useless, or to be helpless. So, dude is blind? That doesn't, in and of itself, make him helpless. Or useless. He may very well be both, but that's a whole 'nother story. Computers can easily do text to voice. Websites can make it possible, without an awful lot of work. Standards, people - USE THEM!! Stop being jackasses, and stop being smug that you can roll out an idiotic abortion of a web page, then blame the blind man because he can't read your shite.
As a builder, I modified buildings to enable handicapped people to access them. I see it everywhere - shopping malls, court houses, even the jail house. Churches, schools, private homes, there really aren't many places that a handicapped person can't make a stink over, if he can't access it.
So, fix your POS website if it isn't accessible to a handicapped person. It's not going to cost you thousands of dollars, after all. Just hire someone to do it right the first time.
(Score: 2) by Chocolate on Wednesday October 23 2019, @11:38AM (1 child)
Probably cheaper just to have two sites with a redirect if screen reader or similar is detected.
I have no idea how this is going to help someone fill in a form while blind but I am open to learning new things.
Bit-choco-coin anyone?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23 2019, @07:06PM
If you are halfway technical, try it yourself. You can use the built-in readers on Windows, Mac or iOS. It is good enough for most purposes. Or you can use Orca on Linux and https://www.nvaccess.org/ [nvaccess.org] on Windows as free alternatives that many people use.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22 2019, @05:48PM (2 children)
"in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases, or operates a place of public accommodation."
i disagree that anyone is owed any access or accommodations, even if it is the right/nice thing to do. A private business is not public and owes jack shit to "society" or any segment of society. In fact, the public institutions owe their very existence to the private enterprises so they should be happy they are allowed to continue stealing. If a business doesn't cater to your made up gender, religion or physical needs then take your whiny ass somewhere else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22 2019, @11:50PM
This is actually an interesting point. Why would one have such strictures? And what might the limits be?
The controlling concern is a stable, flourishing society. That is the goal of good public policy.
The concern is that of exclusion, or driving people to desparation. This is bad public policy, by the standards mentioned above.
By this logic, it makes sense to say that a business offering services to the public should be run in such a way as to be as available to the widest range of the public as reasonably possible. If it's not a public accommodation, something like a private club, then this doesn't apply.
The interesting case is then the question of what rights of refusal businesses do have. This is where we get to things like the masterpiece cake shop case, and the question of compelled speech.
It's not quite settled yet, but it has been observed that a set of laws and policies that de facto exclude, for example, the devoutly religious, is just as much exclusionary as any other such policy, and to push them out of commercial life on pain of being forced to violate their consciences and foreswear their faith is not likely to have quite the productive result one might otherwise hope.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23 2019, @12:55AM
There is a reason why all the thought underlying most of Western Democracy is firmly rooted in the concept of the Veil of Ignorance. However, it is good to know that if you end up disabled or impaired when you are older, you won't blame a business for not having enough parking spots or a ramp so you can even get in the door. Your position would apparently still stands when they are the only grocery store, pharmacy or other business in a reasonable travel time.