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Department of Justice Says Business Websites Must be ADA-Compliant

January 12, 2011 By: David D. Menzies Category: Government

(Washington, D.C.) The National Small Business Association (NSBA) is reporting that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has issued several advance notices of proposed rulemakings (ANPRM) in regard to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA, which was signed into law in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, prohibits discrimination against the disabled and requires public accommodations to be accessible to them. According to the NSBA, the most-recent ANPRM would require businesses to make their websites accessible to disabled people. The ANPRM indicates that the proposed rule likely would apply to online-only businesses as well.

The NSBA is reporting that the DOJ announced, “The ADA’s promise to provide an equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities to participate in and benefit from all aspects of American civic and economic life will be achieved in today’s technologically advanced society only if it is clear to State and local governments, businesses, educators, and other public accommodations that their Web sites must be accessible.”

According to the NSBA, the DOJ seeks to address “barriers to accessibility” including websites that “fail to incorporate or activate features that enable users with disabilities to access all the site’s information or elements.” Examples of this include:

• websites that are not configured for the use of speech recognition software, which is relied on by many individuals who do not have use of their hands;

• websites that do not allow font color and size to be adjusted to accommodate the visually impaired;

• websites that do not provide captions for pictures, videos, or other multimedia presentations, which prevents “screen readers” from reading the information aloud to individuals who cannot see;

• websites that require timed responses but do not provide an option for those whom more times is needed; and websites that require timed responses from users, but do not provide an option for a user to indicate that more time is needed; and

• websites that rely on CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart – the distorted text that many websites require users to input before completing a transaction).

Information on the DOJ rules is available here: http://www.ada.gov/anprm2010.htm

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