What Should You Be Doing Now
Although the DOJ has not published regulations on website
accessibility, it does appear that a de facto standard is coming
into existence based on the settlement agreements the DOJ
has reached with a number of businesses. Specifically, the DOJ
seems satisfied with compliance with the “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0,” a technical standard created by the World
Wide Web Consortium (www.w3c.org) to help developers and
site managers make the web more accessible. How do you go
about determining whether your website meets this standard?
First, contact your web designer and webhosting service
to find out their experience with these Accessibility Guidelines and whether they adhered to them in developing and
updating your web page. If they do not have the relevant
expertise, seek it out and have a gap analysis done by experts to
determine what you need to do to make your website accessible. Have those experts prioritize the things that can be done
inexpensively and quickly (e.g., tagging pictures with descriptive text, eliminating text from graphics, etc.). There are some
tasks, e.g., adding closed captioning to videos, that will need
to be addressed, but may take longer and be more expensive.
In some instances, you may want to take those and similar
features offline until they are accessible.
Second, if your website goes beyond providing mere
information, for example, allowing individuals to submit job
applications or register for promotions, make those items a
priority. The DOJ appears more interested in those websites
that are not mere advertisements, but also have some degree of
non-passive interaction.
Third, make sure that, as new content is added to the
website, it is designed from the start to be accessible so you do
not have to redo it later.
Finally, make sure your website has a way for those with
disabilities to contact you to obtain information from the
website and/or register accessibility concerns. Adding contact
information for someone at your business who can respond
to a particular user’s inability to access the site, or a portion
of it, is a proactive step your business can take to address site
accessibility issues up front in order to avoid running into legal
problems later.
While taking your website down would certainly eliminate
the risk of an enforcement action or a lawsuit, in today’s world
that is simply not a realistic approach. Thus, until the DOJ
publishes regulations regarding accessibility of websites, taking
these steps is a good step toward limiting your exposure to a
liability most people do not realize they currently have. G
Douglas H. Duerr is a partner at Elarbee Thompson, a national
labor and employment law firm with an industry practice area
focused on franchises. Learn more at www.elarbeethompson.com.
GearedUp | 2016 Issue 2
59