Does YOUR Website Have to be Accessible Under the Americans with Disabilities Act?
JD Supra
Is the internet a place of public accommodation: a virtual town hall or a virtual shopping mall or a virtual movie theater? Courts still struggle with that.
Physicalist courts say that the ADA requires a physical location. Ouelette v. Viacom, No. cv 10-133-M-DWM-JCL, 2011 WL 1882780 (D. Mont. March 31, 2011) (no ADA claim re YouTube); Noah v. AOL Time Warner, 261 F. Supp. 2d 532 (E.D. Va. 2003) (same re: chat room); Earll v. eBay, Inc., No. 5:11-cv-00262-JF (HRL), 2011 WL 3955485 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 7, 2011) (same: no ADA claim re eBay); Cullen v. Netflix, Inc., 880 F. Supp. 2d 1017 (N.D. Cal. 2012) (same: no ADA claim re Netflix); Jancik v. Redbox Automated Retail, LLC, No. SACV 13-1387-DOC, 2014 WL 1920751 (C.D. Cal. May 14, 2014) (same: no ADA claim re redboxinstant.com).
DOJ Pushes for Better Blind Access to Websites
Wall Street Journal
The Americans With Disabilities Act was enacted before there was an Internet, but the U.S. Department of Justice interprets the law in a way that companies must make their websites and mobile apps accessible to blind people and people with other physical limitations.
The agency has been focusing greater attention on the issue and is planning to release revised rules next year to codify the ADA so it’s clear that accessibility extends to the Internet, which wasn’t a big part of everyday life when the law originally was passed in 1990, said Chris Danielsen, director of public relations at the National Federation of the Blind. The Justice Department didn’t respond to requests to comment, but posted a notice to The Federal Register last spring saying rules would be introduced in March 2015.
Tax-Free Disability Savings Bill Headed To Obama
The U.S. Senate has voted overwhelmingly to send legislation to the president establishing a new way for people with disabilities to save money without risking their government benefits.
Feds Inch Closer To Disability Hiring Goal
The federal government added people with disabilities to its payroll at a higher rate last year than at any other time in the last three decades.
More than 16,000 people with disabilities were hired by the U.S. government during fiscal year 2013, according to a new report from the Office of Personnel Management. That brought the total number of federal workers with disabilities to 234,395.