The ADA Stalks The Internet: Is Your Web Page Illegal?
From: InternetWeek - February 28, 2000 - page 33
http://www.internetwk.com

One of the most fascinating characteristics of democracy's quest for
"equality" is the process by which a genuine desire to help the unfortunate
metastasizes into a regulatory cancer. Few examples serve better than the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), an act of charity that has become a
swelling tithe, enriching class-action lawyers quick to feast on vague
legislation promoting poster-child plaintiffs. 

Don't look now, but the ADA industry has its sites on the Web. In a few
years, if regulatory history is repeated, any Web site that doesn't provide
government-sanctioned equal access for the handicapped could be declared
illegal. 

Originally intended to promote common sense accommodations like wheelchair
ramps for new public buildings, the ADA will be applied to make Web pages
"equally accessible" by the blind, the blind-deaf and the cognitively
disabled. 

This is both a noble goal and a fascinating technical challenge. Great
strides have already been made, enriching the lives of many people previously
living on the fringes of society. In a free country, resources would continue
to be applied to these challenges in proportion to both the attractiveness of
the market and the spirit that motivates acts of charity. Celebrities would
draw attention to the plight of the unfortunate, and good works would be
rewarded with public acclaim. Practical objectives would be pursued, leading
to incremental advances that would be accepted with gratitude by thankful
recipients. 

But who lives in a free country? According to Section 508 of the Workforce
Investment Act of 1998, not us. Watch as a parade of empowered "victims" and
their professional advocates begin discovering and demanding their rights. 

The first step will be to use the $26 billion-a-year procurement power of the
federal government to strike fear into the hearts of IT vendors. 

Based on recommendations recently unveiled by the Architectural and
Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (http://www.access-board.gov),
vendors that don't conform to the board's ideas of how to make hardware and
software usable by the handicapped won't be allowed to sell equipment or
services to the federal government. This in itself is no great threat to
liberty. Right now, no products meet the proposed regulations. Who cares if
the government grinds to a halt because its own mandates prevent it from
upgrading its computers? 

But things will not stop there. It's only a matter of time before Yahoo, AOL
and other fat targets get hit with class-action lawsuits claiming that their
Web sites violate the ADA. These lawsuits will demand millions in damages and
will generate reams of front-page media coverage as learned pundits cluck
about the "visionless divide." The first lawsuits will fail, but each
successive round will sharpen the next attack. 

Drawn to the TV cameras like flies to an open sore, congressmen will hold
hearings at which cyber-celebrities will speak about the need for
government-industry cooperation as they quietly make campaign contributions
to members of the Judiciary Committee overseeing their commercial activities. 

Finally, an out-of-court settlement will be reached by exhausted executives
tired of being featured on the cover of News week as abusers of the
handicapped. This settlement will initially apply only to the largest media
companies, which will be given several years to comply. But in time, the
regulations will be extended to smaller Web site operators until no
exceptions are permitted. 

A multibillion-dollar fund will be established to hand out grants to
designated enterprises that would otherwise have a hard time achieving
compliance. A cottage industry of professional facilitators will train
Webmasters on how to get certificates of approval from the Access Board,
whose funding will have to be vastly expanded to process the flood of annual
renewals. Pirate Web sites flouting the regulations will be brought to
justice by an expanded arm of the FBI's cybercrimes unit. Democrats and
Republicans will fight over who can increase the cybercrimes unit's budget
faster. Congress will, of course, be exempt from all of these regulations as
it keeps busy dreaming up new ways to extend its influence into cyberspace. 

Or maybe none of this will happen. Maybe the distributed netizens of the Web
will look up, yawn, and go about their business with complete disregard to
any pronouncements coming from Washington. One can only hope.  

Bill Frezza is a general partner at Adams Capital Management. He can be
reached at frezza@alum.mit.edu or http://www.acm.com. 


Related story:
U.S. won't release new Web site regs for review yet 
http://www.freedomforum.org/news/2000/02/2000-02-24-11.asp