Target Sued Over Site's Visually-Impaired Accessibility

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Oct 15th 2007 at 11:22AM

A new ruling requires that Target.com and other sites allow for keyboard navigation and use alternate tags for images in order to make the sites accessible for the visually-impaired. These requirements sound simple enough, but may prove difficult for all of those dynamic, Flash-enabled pages that are popular among e-commerce sites. That means this ruling could cost site providers like Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy a lot of development money while web agencies rejoice.

US District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, of the Court for the Northern District of California, ruled that the case of the "National Federation of the Blind vs Target" is eligible for class-action status, meaning that the suit against Target can go forward in court and make the company liable for the site's accessibility issues. Patel ruled that "the inaccessibility of Target.com impeded full and equal enjoyment of goods and services offered in Target stores."

Target has attempted to have the case thrown numerous times, but but has failed.

From Tech Crunch

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Filed under: Computers

Tags: accessability, california, class action, ClassAction, disabled, government, impaired, law, sue, target, visually

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

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John @ Oct 15th 2007 1:11PM

I think it is ridiculous to require a business to do anything of this nature. Let their loss in sales encourage them to be more accessible, rather than whining to the judge every time. Just shop elsewhere.

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