The New Scam is Here: Suing You for Accessibility Issues

[Ryuzaki]

Just as soon as the old scam of suing everyone for using your image died off (or at least scaring them into sending you money), there's a new game in town.

Apparently web stores that have X number of employees and sell over X amount of revenue a year can be sued for not being perfectly accessible to blind internet users. I think the numbers are 15 employees and $25,000 revenue, but don't quote me on it.

Accessibility is things like title tags on images and links, title tags on form elements for screen readers, high enough text to background contrast, and lots of little things that every CMS misses.

One in particular that misses a lot is Shopify, and these lawyers have realized that that's a gold mine. All you have to do is scrape footprints for Shopify, find big stores, and sue them.

"In 2016 in California, Bag’n Baggage was found to be in violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act. The company was ordered to pay $4,000 in damages to the plaintiff, who hadn’t been able to shop independently on the inaccessible website, as well as remove the web barriers. Last year, the Whisper Restaurant and Lounge in Los Angeles was handed a similar finding, after a woman who is blind was unable to read the menu or make a reservation online." - Source​

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New York and Florida are particularly vulnerable. Source of images above.

If you fit the bill with a big eCommerce marketplace, and/or if you use Shopify, you may want to look into this accessibility issue. I'm sure Shopify is scrambling to roll out updates but all their sub-themes have to update too I'd think.

Just another public service announcement / heads up from your friendly neighborhood Ryuzaki.

 

[bernard]

That's crazy wow lol

Good business opportunity though to fix this for clients.

 

[secretagentdad]

This is almost as ridiculous as the cookie disclaimers.

 

[Asad]

This is almost as ridiculous as the cookie disclaimers.

Where are people getting sued for cookie disclaimers? Is it really that serious out here? lol

 

[Physiq]

Lol, that's some fucked up shit! Wonder if it could be a short-term money runner for someone. As previously mentioned, you can scrape for obvious footprints and sell that list to solicitors.

 

[Wills]

Lol, that's some fucked up shit! Wonder if it could be a short-term money runner for someone. As previously mentioned, you can scrape for obvious footprints and sell that list to solicitors.

Ha! at first I thought you were going to say short-term money in fixing stuff for people. Then I read the next line. Don't contribute to the douchebaggery already happening!

 

[wikibum]

A lot of lawyers (as usual) are threatening to sue a lot of websites for not being ADA compliant. Those emails are going around and some clients are worried about it.

"Even though businesses and state and local governments have flexibility in how they comply with the ADA’s general requirements of nondiscrimination and effective communication, they still must ensure that the programs, services, and goods that they provide to the public—including those provided online—are accessible to people with disabilities."
https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/

It seems like an easy fix via a plugin. I am just wondering if anyone has had any issues with it or ran into any trouble for not having it.

 

[becool]

I defend these. They have been going around for a while. There are a handful of law firms that specialize in handling these claims plaintiff-side. It's a high volume and low-payout niche for the plaintiff firms that file these lawsuits. From my vantage, this is yet another (seemingly) consumer oriented law that does nothing for the consumer, but hurts businesses (while allowing a small-ish segment of attorneys to profit). This is another "win" for the legislature (and the folks who voted for them), I guess.

It seems like an easy fix via a plugin. I am just wondering if anyone has had any issues with it or ran into any trouble for not having it.

Take a look at this.

 

[wikibum]

Take a look at this.

Thanks! It looks overwhelming because they go into details about every single thing that you can do for maximum accessibility features.

While I am not suggesting a plugin will solve all your problems - it will help non code savvy business owners a way to at least have SOME accessibility features enabled. Some is better than nothing until we know exactly what criteria these lawyers are going after.

In reality, to implement what W3 ORG states in that document. I would have to rebuild my site from the ground up. Other solution can be to build an accessibility first version of the website on a separate sub domain and no index it, but I think that is overkill.

 

[Biggy]

Man some people are really low lifers. I could never scam people. Thanks god I was learned what's right snd what's not. Not looking for quick and easy wins by being a shit to society.

I believe in karma.