While it's easy to say the site must legally be 'accessible', the problem I've encountered is that there is apparently no legal standard for 'accessible'. Section 508, WCAG, etc. do not have US caselaw behind them that actually identifies them as such.
From a practitioner's viewpoint, it might make perfect sense to target WCAG, and possibly consider anything less 'unaccessible'. However, from a legal viewpoint - which typically doesn't acknowledge any obligation or liability without precedent - it's a very different situation.
I'm curious if these tort cases can set that precedent, and clarify things for the lawyers.
In general courts look at standards IF you point the judge to it. The judge will look at the standard, and if it looks reasonable will accept it, thus creating precedent. If your website obeys a standard the other side needs to prove the standard isn't enough to meet the law. That is if you meet WCAG the judge will probably default to considering it a bug in the screen reader - putting the burden the screen reader to show that the standard is not enough for ADA, not only is this a higher bar, but the judge will generally cut you some slack for trying.
The above assumes there is only one standard. Standards bodies (ANSI, ECMA, ISO) often accept multiple competing standards. This happens when they are not aware of the other standard, or when they believe the standards can compete (C++ doesn't prevent you from creating an ISO standard for a different programming language).
Companies will often try to get their internal process encoded into a standard for this reason: it documents something that can be brought to court with more weight than something they came up with: if you sue latter the judge will ask if you care so much why didn't you get involved with the standards process when the company created their standard. Since part of becoming a standard is you have to take input from others this is somewhat reasonable.
The above is a US perspective from not a lawyer. Other countries have different rules. Talk to a local lawyer if you need legal advice.
In general US civil court judges will cut you some slack if you can demonstrate that you acted in good faith and made reasonable efforts to comply with the law, even if you are technically violating some rules. This applies to most sections of civil law, not just web accessibility.
Yeah, I concluded that after scanning and seeing the "Some Job Killer" graph that essentially shows that the population in Seattle has increased since 1990.
>Bloomberg reports that the 800MW Vineyard Wind project – a yet-to-be-built joint effort of Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners – is expected to provide electricity and renewable energy credits for 6.5 cents a kilowatt-hour (8.5c/kWh AUD) over the life of its 20-year contract.
Seems maybe a little premature to call it successful.
OTOH, great to see the US getting off the dime after much of Europe has tackled this - with sterling results. That our regrettable resistance is ending is in itself a great success.
"State employees in the past accepted lower salaries in exchange for this future benefit."
Isn't this the public sector equivalent of letting a startup pay you in equity? While it may have been characterized as more secure than personal investment, agreeing to this compensation scheme doesn't remove the burden of risk, particularly when the 'startup' offering to pay you later is state government.
While it may have been characterized as more secure than personal investment, agreeing to this compensation scheme doesn't remove the burden of risk
Owing a defined-benefit pension is a legal obligation to provide a future revenue stream. It's more like a bond than a stock, and debt generally has priority over equity.
Companies default on bonds all the time. That's one of the reasons bonds carry interest - partially to compensate the bondholder for the opportunity costs of not having the money spent on bond and partially to compensate for the risk of the default. Would you buy a bond from a company that is consistently increasing spending 6x their revenue? Would you do it if their plan for covering the difference is "we'll just take more money from you when we need to"?
And employees who took their government’s and their employer’s word (and contract) for it are somehow he ones to blame?
It’s no small thing to suggest that people should view the legal obligations of their governments with skepticism. That we should anticipate, and account for the risk of, government default in our employment plans.
Politicians who didn’t want to raise taxes (to increase pay, to attract workers) made promises of deferred compensation (which have to be higher to offset now vs. future). Voters bought it, -hook, line, and sinker-, and the entire state bought public services on credit.
I have a hard time pinning that on the guy doing largely unskilled work for the last 30 years of his life. He may be left holding the bag, but I’m not going to leave him with the blame.
> It’s no small thing to suggest that people should view the legal obligations of their governments with skepticism.
It is a huge thing which should always be on people's mind. Government is the only player on the market who literally owns the rules of the game and can bend or completely change them in their benefit. Which means every promise from them should be viewed with extreme suspicion, as they are both the ones promising it and the ones charged with enforcing the promise, which means it is much easier for them to renege on the promise.
> I have a hard time pinning that on the guy doing largely unskilled work for the last 30 years of his life.
Government employees are not "largely unskilled work", and they are surely not voting against the current setup, as far as I can see. If they did, we could talk about something that is done to them against their will. Right now they are major part of the fraud being perpetuated. They are not some passive victim of some nefarious force, they are active and willing participants of the scheme. Try to cut those benefits or switch them to defined contribution or make them contribute enough to cover the deficit - and see how vocal they'd get.
No, it’s the equivalent of a megacorp withdrawing funds from your 401k to cover its own losses.
By the way, startups do have to give you your shares, they just might turn out worthless. Governments promised USD, and were the safest borrowers around for a long time.
A few years ago I went to a dinner party at an anthropology professor's home. He was a big game hunter, and an entire floor of his house was full of taxidermied animals of all types and sizes, from all over the world.
The idea of sport hunting (i.e. killing things for fun) still troubles me, but I have to admit it was fascinating to get to see those animals up close (much closer than I would at a zoo). Presumably those dead animals will still be providing that opportunity long after their zoo counterparts have been replaced by a new generation of captives.
I could respect hunters if they went out with only a knife or a spear, alone on foot, but killing an animal at a safe distance with a high powered rifle, a vehicle to make a quick getaway, a whole crew of guards and guides, is just base cowardice, those people are the scum of the earth.
And even then, no reason to hunt some animal unless you plan to eat them.
The typical comparison of college to today to that from 20 or 30 years ago is just poorly considered. "Where does the money go?" Consider the things that didn't exist at many colleges 30 years ago:
- IT
- Any type of student welfare services.
- Title IX and any other regulatory offices.
- Diversity offices and other efforts.
- Disability services.
- Dedicated police departments.
- Advising, Counseling, and Academic support (because more and lower-qualified students than ever are going to college).
- In the case of state schools, typically significant budget cuts from the state.
I'm not saying these rationally explain the increase in cost, but it's a significant expansion in responsibility and functionality that brought with it administration and bureaucracy.
I definitely see the potential for cost savings in some areas, but there are whole sectors of technology activity in a contemporary university that aren't offsetting some pre-digital expense; they're just a reflection of the increased technical cost of instruction and lifestyle.
I'm not crazy about the current state of internet privacy, but I think it's a missed opportunity if we don't teach the general public just how much control they have over it. Most tracking being done can be prevented by a few modifications to web browser configuration. At the end of the day, we are sending Facebook our ID to be tracked. This is avoidable for a user with some knowledge and agency.
By structural, you mean regulatory. I agree that data stewardship should be much better-regulated than it is now.
But right now I can install any number of tools on Google's own browser that mitigate most common tracking/privacy concerns. I don't necessarily agree that we need to increase government regulation to address a concern that a Chrome extension is already serving.
the answer to privacy violations cannot just be technological solutions on the consumer end. It's like having people break into your house every week and someone tells you to buy a good pair of boxing gloves.
This warrants a political solution and I'm glad that the EU is moving into the right direction.
From a practitioner's viewpoint, it might make perfect sense to target WCAG, and possibly consider anything less 'unaccessible'. However, from a legal viewpoint - which typically doesn't acknowledge any obligation or liability without precedent - it's a very different situation.
I'm curious if these tort cases can set that precedent, and clarify things for the lawyers.