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ARTICLE · 29 MARCH 2023

The Rough Waters Of Website Accessibility

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Companies are continuing to find it hard to navigate the legal landscape of website accessibility. Plaintiff's lawyers argue that "inaccessible" websites or mobile apps fail to comply...

United StatesPrivacy
Hayley S. Grunvald
Hayley S. Grunvald
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Companies are continuing to find it hard to navigate the legal landscape of website accessibility. Plaintiff's lawyers argue that "inaccessible" websites or mobile apps fail to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act or similar state laws. This despite the absence of standards for website accessibility in these laws. Similarly, while the Department of Justice does not have a regulation setting out detailed website accessibility standards, the Department's position has been that the Americans with Disabilities Act's general nondiscrimination and effective communication provisions apply to web accessibility.

The Department has directed that businesses look to existing technical standards for website accessibility including the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the Section 508 Standards, which the federal government uses for its own websites. And despite the absence of formal website accessibility standards, the Department

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