13 ms·

Do protections for people with disabilities apply online? Domino’s asks SCOTUS

27 points by jimktrains2 7y ago

SEOinSeattle 7y ago
This would be an excellent project for the United States Digital Service. Define what accessible means, in reasonably achievable terms, then provide code and specs for government agencies that can also be used, freely, by businesses. Oh, wait: https://www.section508.gov/create/web-content https://www.section508.gov/create/web-content
joelx 7y ago
I own a website development company with 180 employees and sadly the ADA has been very abused by ambulance chasing attorneys. I have had several of my customers receive scammy demand letters for missing minor alt tags and things like that.
- api 7y ago
  It should not be enforced through the civil court, or at least not at first. This is actually a case where a new bureaucracy may be needed to handle reports of non compliance in a standardized way. The civil courts should pretty much never be society's "first line tech support" for the reason you cite as well as high cost and lack of consistency. Of course this would never happen because of regulatory capture in the US by lawyers in this case. The US is far more corrupt than most people think.
  - jimktrains2 7y ago
    It's corrupt in ways that are different than most people think when they hear "corrupt". The us largely isn't a place where people in power (e g. Police) extort people to do their job nor does paying the right (low level) people (directly) get you something that would otherwise be held up. The US is corrupt in its complacency. Most people are fine with most things and largely don't have the time or ability to care about the rest. It's easy for regulatory bodies to turn to the industries they regulate for expertise, and it's easy for that to turn into the turnstile we have today. It's also easy for this not to matter to most people until it becomes a problem, and at that point it's hard to fix without political will.
  - siruncledrew 7y ago
    I agree that it would be less-ambulance-chase-y if there was a compliance agency (such as the FTC or some other bureau) where websites could be "neutrally audited" for ADA compliance and then presented with a list of priority action items to fix. I believe it would be possible to mostly automate audit-report generation as well, since there are already ADA-checker browser extensions and tools. A "one-strike, warning-first" system is less punitive-focused than the current system, and less likely to be abused by law firms for the goal of a quick cash grab. Personally, I would prefer to be informed and given a chance to fix something before being punished and branded as someone who hates the disabled by a law firm. How many of their websites are 100% ADA-compliant? Obviously, it's important to be considerate about providing usable online experiences for the disabled. That should be a common goal. However, I've seen ADA lawsuit letters as ridiculous as the DCMA Youtube ones. There's an entire shitty industry centered around mailing out thousands of these letters per week hoping to collect back enough bribes to not go to court. These law firms are just like other corporations looking for a revenue stream to pad their bottomline. Contrary to their ads, they are not fighting for others or pursuing justice for society, they are trying to get rich.
    - DanBC 7y ago
      We tried self regulation. We saw it being ignored widely. See for example universities not making their material accessible. People on HN lost their minds when video material was taken down for violating accessibility standards. What people failed to realise was that the universities imposed a condition (that the videos had to be accessible); they provided advice and help to make the video accessible; they asked professors to sign off that the videos were accessible; and those professors lied and said "yep no problems" even when no work had been done on accessibility. The courts are the only way to drive change.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    A bunch of people in this thread are suggesting that courts are being used as the first method of requesting accessibility, but this is untrue. Accessibility is a basic human right, recognised by the UN. It's somewhat unfortunate that Americans don't bother to learn about these rights, but they exist and have done for some time. CRPD was adopted in 2006. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities/article-9-accessibility.html https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-... Disabled people have been asking web-designers to fix their websites for longer than many HN readers have been alive. The ADA law was introduced in 1990. W3C have been banging on about accessibility for many years. They formally took on accessibility in 1996. https://www.w3.org/WAI/history https://www.w3.org/WAI/history It's frustrating that web designers chose to blame people with disabilities for not being able to access web sites, rather than accepting that the blame lies with their both their low level of skill in creating accessible site and also their total indifference to disabled people.
mistersquid 7y ago
Unequivocally, yes. The disabled should be able to access online resources in a way that is functionally equivalent to an able-bodied person’s experience. And yes, such accessibility should be protected by law.
- gowld 7y ago
  Why don't we have government relay services for websites? What is the functional equivalent to a picture of food? If this opportunistic enforcement-for-profit goes unchecked, and business and the public discover that the ADA bans providing any services that rely on vision, hearing, or limbs, the ADA won't last long. Having a disability sucks. Not all disabilities are curable. Banning the use of abilities is not a solution that will be tolerated.
  - cco 7y ago
    A description of the food, is this a gotcha?
  - ncallaway 7y ago
    > Banning the use of abilities is not a solution that will be tolerated. I can’t think of any serious proposal ever during the fight for accessibility where this was proposed or seriously considered as an option. Wheelchair cuts in sidewalks don’t prevent you from stepping on the curb. Elevators to spaces that are otherwise only accessible via stairs don’t remove the stairs. Ensuring a website works well with assistive software doesn’t mean the website can’t work for users that don’t need assistive software. Where does this concern come from? What proposal are you worried about where we would ban the use of abilities, or what percent in the application of the ADA do you think warrants this concern?
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    >Why don't we have government relay services for websites? This is like doing away with wheelchair ramps and replacing it with government employees who will show up and carry the wheelchair up stairs. Firstly it shifts the burden from the business to providing websites the impaired can use to all of us and it does so in a way that multiplies the costs in a virtually unbounded fashion. Instead of a business doing the work once we will be expected to open our wallets every time and forever when someone wants to do something on the web where a rapidly increasing share of all business is done. >What is the functional equivalent to a picture of food? A well crafted textual description of said food which many times is already somewhere below said food anyway?
remote_phone 7y ago
If the “award” went to charity instead of lawyers and “victims” it would eliminate a lot of the lawsuits. The incentives are entirely wrong in these lawsuits.
- gruez 7y ago
  If it goes to some random charity rather than the plaintiffs/lawyers, who is going to bring these cases to court?
  - gowld 7y ago
    Anyone who cares.
    - gruez 7y ago
      ...and is willing to foot the tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars for lawyers and court fees.
    - michaelmrose 7y ago
      People who aren't rich care about things but can't afford to litigate them in real actual courts which have the power to effect meaningful change without access to an expensive legal system. This means that there has to be a relatively large sum of money available to inspire a lawyer to work without being paid up front on the expectation of future reward or the case wont happen no matter how warranted. Expecting society to thrive on the largess of the rich is a recipe for disaster.
- liability 7y ago
  Yes, making it so only the rich could hope to afford winning a court case (let alone losing one) is a great way to reduce the number of people using the legal system; excellent insight...
  - gowld 7y ago
    Small claims court is free.
curiousgal 7y ago
Although I sympathize with the blind person, going as far as suing the company is, to me, an asshole move. To be fair, no one has stopped the man from ordering from a store. This is akin to a person with no smartphone suing a company for not making an app for his "dumb" phone.
- DanBC 7y ago
  Disability discrimination laws have been in place longer than the average HN reader has been alive. We tried asking nicely. We got told to fuck off. Now we're using the courts, and we will win, because the law is on our side.
- jimktrains2 7y ago
  They did prevent him from using online/app-only discounts.
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  The settlement will likely be a rounding error on profit and is absolutely the only way to establish precedent that this is required for companies that do business here. Lawsuits or lost profits due to bad PR are the only way corporate America changes policies. It's not an asshole move its just the way business is done. Those who don't understand how business is done are simply trampled.
dbg31415 7y ago
It'd be smart for Dominoes, or anyone, to just use Lighthouse as part of the build process. Any new code that's written, or old code that's modified, has to score an 80 or better on Lighthouse's accessibility audit in order to pass code review. Often if comes down to just building with the right front-end framework, and doing minuscule things that lead to a better end product... but those things have to be done from the start. Retrofitting a site after it has been built (poorly) is crazy expensive. Once you add Lighthouse, increase the target score every 6 months, until you're at 95s across the board. And build in WCAG audits as well. Accessibility tends to help with cross-browser / cross-screen issues, helps with SEO, and gets people out of the dated mindset that designs have to be pixel-perfect. Don't expect an agency vendor to come in and win the work at the lowest bid and actually care about doing it right. The number of clients who have any idea about accessibility is painfully low. That's what's so nice about Lighthouse; it gives non-technical staff a way to verify the work is done right.
- jimktrains2 7y ago
  Edit: op edited their post to remove these sections. > Private businesses... let the business decide if it wants to support those customers. Should businesses also decide if they want to serve black, Latino, Asian, or mixed race folk? These arguments have been had and settled: it's no ok to have a business that is open to the public and to also discriminate against anyone. > Also... and let me just harp a bit here. ADA standards went a bit overboard. I think they should apply to government, and likely businesses, but not my own house. Building code that says all the thermostats have to be waist-high... ugh, come on. I don't want to have to stoop over to reach the damn things. (= But that's our building code now. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Can't we have them taller and just mandate that they all have to connect to a smart phone? I'm very confused as to what you're saying. The ada doesn't apply to residential buildings, even new construction. I'm not very familiar with residential building codes, but I've been in a lot of new construction since the passing of the ada and have never encountered what you're describing.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 7y ago
leggomylibro 7y ago
Even if we ignore the glaringly obvious answer (yes), hasn't this sort of thing already been litigated in the courts? Like, when Netflix got sued for not providing closed-captioning on some of their content? https://www.3playmedia.com/2015/07/23/nad-v-netflix-ada-lawsuit-requires-closed-captioning-on-streaming-video/ https://www.3playmedia.com/2015/07/23/nad-v-netflix-ada-laws...
- tyingq 7y ago
  "It’s important to note that the ruling in NAD v. Netflix was a Massachusetts district court decision, not a US Supreme Court decision."
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
xenospn 7y ago
I honestly can't believe Dominos would spend millions on litigating instead of spending thousands on making their website and app more accessible.
molticrystal 7y ago
While I do believe that access should be granted when possible, to demonstrate that this is not as simple a question as it appears on the the surface, we can ask a couple related questions. Are there online activities that an able body can do that should be prohibited because it is difficult or impossible to implement an equivalent functionality or experience for a disabled person ? If there are activities that exist, where is the line drawn?

27 points by jimktrains2 7y ago

This would be an excellent project for the United States Digital Service. Define what accessible means, in reasonably achievable terms, then provide code and specs for government agencies that can also be used, freely, by businesses. Oh, wait: https://www.section508.gov/create/web-content https://www.section508.gov/create/web-content

joelx 7y ago

I own a website development company with 180 employees and sadly the ADA has been very abused by ambulance chasing attorneys. I have had several of my customers receive scammy demand letters for missing minor alt tags and things like that.

api 7y ago
It should not be enforced through the civil court, or at least not at first. This is actually a case where a new bureaucracy may be needed to handle reports of non compliance in a standardized way. The civil courts should pretty much never be society's "first line tech support" for the reason you cite as well as high cost and lack of consistency. Of course this would never happen because of regulatory capture in the US by lawyers in this case. The US is far more corrupt than most people think.
- jimktrains2 7y ago
  It's corrupt in ways that are different than most people think when they hear "corrupt". The us largely isn't a place where people in power (e g. Police) extort people to do their job nor does paying the right (low level) people (directly) get you something that would otherwise be held up. The US is corrupt in its complacency. Most people are fine with most things and largely don't have the time or ability to care about the rest. It's easy for regulatory bodies to turn to the industries they regulate for expertise, and it's easy for that to turn into the turnstile we have today. It's also easy for this not to matter to most people until it becomes a problem, and at that point it's hard to fix without political will.
- siruncledrew 7y ago
  I agree that it would be less-ambulance-chase-y if there was a compliance agency (such as the FTC or some other bureau) where websites could be "neutrally audited" for ADA compliance and then presented with a list of priority action items to fix. I believe it would be possible to mostly automate audit-report generation as well, since there are already ADA-checker browser extensions and tools. A "one-strike, warning-first" system is less punitive-focused than the current system, and less likely to be abused by law firms for the goal of a quick cash grab. Personally, I would prefer to be informed and given a chance to fix something before being punished and branded as someone who hates the disabled by a law firm. How many of their websites are 100% ADA-compliant? Obviously, it's important to be considerate about providing usable online experiences for the disabled. That should be a common goal. However, I've seen ADA lawsuit letters as ridiculous as the DCMA Youtube ones. There's an entire shitty industry centered around mailing out thousands of these letters per week hoping to collect back enough bribes to not go to court. These law firms are just like other corporations looking for a revenue stream to pad their bottomline. Contrary to their ads, they are not fighting for others or pursuing justice for society, they are trying to get rich.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    We tried self regulation. We saw it being ignored widely. See for example universities not making their material accessible. People on HN lost their minds when video material was taken down for violating accessibility standards. What people failed to realise was that the universities imposed a condition (that the videos had to be accessible); they provided advice and help to make the video accessible; they asked professors to sign off that the videos were accessible; and those professors lied and said "yep no problems" even when no work had been done on accessibility. The courts are the only way to drive change.
- DanBC 7y ago
  A bunch of people in this thread are suggesting that courts are being used as the first method of requesting accessibility, but this is untrue. Accessibility is a basic human right, recognised by the UN. It's somewhat unfortunate that Americans don't bother to learn about these rights, but they exist and have done for some time. CRPD was adopted in 2006. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities/article-9-accessibility.html https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-... Disabled people have been asking web-designers to fix their websites for longer than many HN readers have been alive. The ADA law was introduced in 1990. W3C have been banging on about accessibility for many years. They formally took on accessibility in 1996. https://www.w3.org/WAI/history https://www.w3.org/WAI/history It's frustrating that web designers chose to blame people with disabilities for not being able to access web sites, rather than accepting that the blame lies with their both their low level of skill in creating accessible site and also their total indifference to disabled people.

mistersquid 7y ago

Unequivocally, yes. The disabled should be able to access online resources in a way that is functionally equivalent to an able-bodied person’s experience. And yes, such accessibility should be protected by law.

gowld 7y ago
Why don't we have government relay services for websites? What is the functional equivalent to a picture of food? If this opportunistic enforcement-for-profit goes unchecked, and business and the public discover that the ADA bans providing any services that rely on vision, hearing, or limbs, the ADA won't last long. Having a disability sucks. Not all disabilities are curable. Banning the use of abilities is not a solution that will be tolerated.
- cco 7y ago
  A description of the food, is this a gotcha?
- ncallaway 7y ago
  > Banning the use of abilities is not a solution that will be tolerated. I can’t think of any serious proposal ever during the fight for accessibility where this was proposed or seriously considered as an option. Wheelchair cuts in sidewalks don’t prevent you from stepping on the curb. Elevators to spaces that are otherwise only accessible via stairs don’t remove the stairs. Ensuring a website works well with assistive software doesn’t mean the website can’t work for users that don’t need assistive software. Where does this concern come from? What proposal are you worried about where we would ban the use of abilities, or what percent in the application of the ADA do you think warrants this concern?
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  >Why don't we have government relay services for websites? This is like doing away with wheelchair ramps and replacing it with government employees who will show up and carry the wheelchair up stairs. Firstly it shifts the burden from the business to providing websites the impaired can use to all of us and it does so in a way that multiplies the costs in a virtually unbounded fashion. Instead of a business doing the work once we will be expected to open our wallets every time and forever when someone wants to do something on the web where a rapidly increasing share of all business is done. >What is the functional equivalent to a picture of food? A well crafted textual description of said food which many times is already somewhere below said food anyway?

remote_phone 7y ago

If the “award” went to charity instead of lawyers and “victims” it would eliminate a lot of the lawsuits. The incentives are entirely wrong in these lawsuits.

gruez 7y ago
If it goes to some random charity rather than the plaintiffs/lawyers, who is going to bring these cases to court?
- gowld 7y ago
  Anyone who cares.
  - gruez 7y ago
    ...and is willing to foot the tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars for lawyers and court fees.
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    People who aren't rich care about things but can't afford to litigate them in real actual courts which have the power to effect meaningful change without access to an expensive legal system. This means that there has to be a relatively large sum of money available to inspire a lawyer to work without being paid up front on the expectation of future reward or the case wont happen no matter how warranted. Expecting society to thrive on the largess of the rich is a recipe for disaster.
liability 7y ago
Yes, making it so only the rich could hope to afford winning a court case (let alone losing one) is a great way to reduce the number of people using the legal system; excellent insight...
- gowld 7y ago
  Small claims court is free.

curiousgal 7y ago

Although I sympathize with the blind person, going as far as suing the company is, to me, an asshole move. To be fair, no one has stopped the man from ordering from a store. This is akin to a person with no smartphone suing a company for not making an app for his "dumb" phone.

DanBC 7y ago
Disability discrimination laws have been in place longer than the average HN reader has been alive. We tried asking nicely. We got told to fuck off. Now we're using the courts, and we will win, because the law is on our side.
jimktrains2 7y ago
They did prevent him from using online/app-only discounts.
michaelmrose 7y ago
The settlement will likely be a rounding error on profit and is absolutely the only way to establish precedent that this is required for companies that do business here. Lawsuits or lost profits due to bad PR are the only way corporate America changes policies. It's not an asshole move its just the way business is done. Those who don't understand how business is done are simply trampled.

dbg31415 7y ago

It'd be smart for Dominoes, or anyone, to just use Lighthouse as part of the build process. Any new code that's written, or old code that's modified, has to score an 80 or better on Lighthouse's accessibility audit in order to pass code review. Often if comes down to just building with the right front-end framework, and doing minuscule things that lead to a better end product... but those things have to be done from the start. Retrofitting a site after it has been built (poorly) is crazy expensive. Once you add Lighthouse, increase the target score every 6 months, until you're at 95s across the board. And build in WCAG audits as well. Accessibility tends to help with cross-browser / cross-screen issues, helps with SEO, and gets people out of the dated mindset that designs have to be pixel-perfect. Don't expect an agency vendor to come in and win the work at the lowest bid and actually care about doing it right. The number of clients who have any idea about accessibility is painfully low. That's what's so nice about Lighthouse; it gives non-technical staff a way to verify the work is done right.

jimktrains2 7y ago
Edit: op edited their post to remove these sections. > Private businesses... let the business decide if it wants to support those customers. Should businesses also decide if they want to serve black, Latino, Asian, or mixed race folk? These arguments have been had and settled: it's no ok to have a business that is open to the public and to also discriminate against anyone. > Also... and let me just harp a bit here. ADA standards went a bit overboard. I think they should apply to government, and likely businesses, but not my own house. Building code that says all the thermostats have to be waist-high... ugh, come on. I don't want to have to stoop over to reach the damn things. (= But that's our building code now. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Can't we have them taller and just mandate that they all have to connect to a smart phone? I'm very confused as to what you're saying. The ada doesn't apply to residential buildings, even new construction. I'm not very familiar with residential building codes, but I've been in a lot of new construction since the passing of the ada and have never encountered what you're describing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago

leggomylibro 7y ago

Even if we ignore the glaringly obvious answer (yes), hasn't this sort of thing already been litigated in the courts? Like, when Netflix got sued for not providing closed-captioning on some of their content? https://www.3playmedia.com/2015/07/23/nad-v-netflix-ada-lawsuit-requires-closed-captioning-on-streaming-video/ https://www.3playmedia.com/2015/07/23/nad-v-netflix-ada-laws...

tyingq 7y ago
"It’s important to note that the ruling in NAD v. Netflix was a Massachusetts district court decision, not a US Supreme Court decision."
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

xenospn 7y ago

I honestly can't believe Dominos would spend millions on litigating instead of spending thousands on making their website and app more accessible.

molticrystal 7y ago

While I do believe that access should be granted when possible, to demonstrate that this is not as simple a question as it appears on the the surface, we can ask a couple related questions. Are there online activities that an able body can do that should be prohibited because it is difficult or impossible to implement an equivalent functionality or experience for a disabled person ? If there are activities that exist, where is the line drawn?