Court Rules Against Target in Web Site Accessibility Lawsuits

by Evan Schuman - October 3rd, 2007 - eWeek.com

When a federal court judge issued rulings Oct. 2 that the $60 billion retailer Target needed to stand trial on charges that its Web site is not sufficiently accessible to visually-impaired shoppers, it sent a strong signal to much of the e-commerce space.

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U.S. Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, sitting in the Northern District of California, issued two critical rulings. The first was that the case was certified as a class action for a group of visually-impaired U.S. consumers, acting under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). The court also held that Target.com is required by California law to be accessible.

Tyranny prevails again.

In America, you cannot decide who your customers will be. Government tyrants will decide who your customers will be. Like the insane ruling where a judge ruled that the dressing room for a strip club had to be made wheel chair accessible . . . . for employees who HAD to be able to climb a pole (something no one in a wheel chair could do) to do their job, this ruling takes us closer and closer to a socialist tyranny. Judges have abandoned common sense and today rule with arrogant disregard for anything that will crush small business.

Small business is the real loser in this suit. Target will find a way to comply. Many small businesses will be held to the same standard and will fail, forcing them to choose between staying off the Internet or going bankrupt trying to provide services to the handicapped that are in opposition to the intent of the Internet experience. Judges have tried repeatedly to force TV to provide options for the visually impaired. How? This is the same problem. The Internet is a visual medium. For certain types of material it can be as impossible to provide Internet useful information that is accessible to the visually impaired.

This is an insane ruling, but then our judges are masters at pretending idiot based decisions are simply too sophisticated for non legal people to understand. Actually they are idiot based decisions and sneering at non legal people is the technique by which the judges avoid answering for how stupid they are.

Our courts are dominated by judges who are pro socialism and hostile to free enterprise.

Welcome to the "rule of judges".