TheAccessPond.com

Earlier today, my friend Lainey Feingold put up a great blog post about a comprehensive web accessibility settlement agreement involving the New York State Attorney General’s Office.  The settlement agreement involves HSBC Card Services.  The settlement agreement requires, among other things, that HSBC make its website conform to WCAG 2.0, level AA.

This isn’t the first time that New York has required Web accessibility — the first one I remember was the New York settlement agreement with Ramada.com and Priceline.com from way back in 2004. My big criticism of the 2004 Ramada.com and Priceline.com settlement agreements was that they required compliance to a random collection of requirements from the Section 508 standards and WCAG 1.0 level 1 and 2 guidelines.  Settling now on WCAG 2.0 Level AA is a huge step forward.

To my mind, there are three big take away messages from the settlement.

1. Meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA.  WCAG 2.0 is here to stay and Level AA compliance is the bar that everyone should be shooting for.  Level AA compliance is being required by more and more public governments throughout the world and it is nice to see a settlement agreement under ADA Title III that follows suit.  It’s a pretty tough standard to meet and could certainly be clearer, but at least it’s uniform requirement.
2. Don’t Forget About Target.  NFB v Target remains the biggest reason why private companies need to make their websites accessible.  California’s Unruh Act and Disabled Persons Act, together with the enforcement provisions that impose treble damages starting at $4,000 are powerful tools indeed.  Only works, however, for companies with customers in California.
3. Don’t count out the ADA.  The latest New York settlement agreement just adds further reason why companies might face an ADA lawsuit if they don’t take Web accessibility seriously.  Although the ADA doesn’t include monetary damages, no company likes the negative publicity that accompanies claims that they discriminate against people with disabilities.

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