SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Court rules grocery store's inaccessible website isn't an ADA violation:
A federal appeals court struck a significant blow against disability rights this week when it ruled that a Florida grocery store's inaccessible website did not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ruling contradicts a 2019 decision by a different appeals court holding that Domino's did violate the ADA when it failed to make its app accessible to blind people.
[...] Winn-Dixie is a grocery store chain with locations across the American South. Juan Carlos Gil is a blind Florida man who patronized Winn-Dixie stores in the Miami area for about 15 years.
A few years ago, Gil learned that the store offered customers the ability to fill prescriptions online. Ordering online saves customers time because prescriptions are ready when the customer arrives. Gill also preferred to order prescriptions online because it offered greater privacy. In court, he testified that ordering in person as a blind man made him "uncomfortable because he did not know who else was nearby listening" as he told the pharmacist his order.
Unfortunately, the Winn-Dixie website was incompatible with the screen-reading software Gil used to surf the web, rendering it effectively useless to him. Incensed, Gil stopped patronizing Winn-Dixie and filed a lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Gil argued that the inaccessible design of the Winn-Dixie website discriminated against blind customers like him because it forced them to order prescriptions in person, a process that is slower and offers less privacy.
In his lawsuit, Gil also said he couldn't access two other features of the Winn-Dixie website: a store locator function and the ability to clip digital coupons and automatically apply them at the register with his loyalty card.
[...] The ruling runs directly contrary to a 2019 decision by the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court, which covers California and several other Western states. In 2019, the Ninth Circuit ruled that Domino's had violated the ADA by failing to make its online ordering system accessible to blind customers. Plaintiff Guillermo Robles claimed that this violated his rights under the ADA, and the Ninth Circuit agreed.
[...] Hence, while the website itself might not be a place of public accommodation, an inaccessible website impedes blind customers' access to the Domino's restaurant—which clearly is such a place.
This situation—where two different appeals courts take divergent positions on the same legal question—is known as a circuit split. For now, businesses in Western states will be required to follow the Ninth Circuit's broad interpretation of the ADA and make their websites accessible. Meanwhile, businesses in the three Eleventh Circuit states—Alabama, Georgia, and Florida—won't have to worry as much about making their websites ADA compliant.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @09:31AM (7 children)
For me, this site is the only one that still works with my ten year old system.
I gave up on the internet stock trading I used to do because the hardware and internet costs to maintain compatibility with their trading website was for me economically not viable.
Many websites have simply become analogous to a physical brick and mortar business with a stuck front door and something really sticky all over the floor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @10:25AM (1 child)
I sort of hate to say it, but if the relatively low economic cost of upgrading every few years kept you from trading stocks, it sounds like you are better off not actively trading.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Tuesday April 13 2021, @10:58AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 13 2021, @11:18AM (4 children)
I'd like to be able to take credit for that but the fact of the matter is it ain't down to our love for our fellow man. Mostly it's because we hate fancy interwebs bullshit that's in the vast majority of pages. If we had to make a prioritization choice on something that negatively impacted 95% of our users or one that negatively impacted 5%, the 5% issue is going to get lower priority on our dev time pretty much always.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:26PM (1 child)
Except most of the complicated bling harms the 95% as well, and exists primarily for the ego-stroking and/or data-harvesting pleasure of the developers and/or executives.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 14 2021, @04:40AM
I thought it existed to keep javascript "programmers" out of the important stuff.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @11:42PM (1 child)
This kind of thinking is a major part of why the ADA was passed in the first place. You're only required to provide reasonable accommodations. It's not like they're requiring that the doors of the establishment be 6 feet wide with a fork lift so that morbidly-obese, land-whales can come into the restaurant. In most cases, having a door that's the appropriate width and some method of getting wheelchairs into the restaurant isn't typically that big of a deal. It's mostly older buildings which may well qualify for an exemption that don't. Most newer buildings will be required to have those things by code so that business owners don't need to worry about it.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 14 2021, @04:44AM
You have the time and desire to write up the pull requests? Go for it. I have things that matter to a lot more people that need doing. And I don't see anyone beating down the door to take any of the work off my plate at the moment.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.