TIP 20

Prosecutions under National DDAs

Australia

A case brought against the Sydney Olympics Committee in Australia in 2000 resulted in a landmark decision against the website owners, requiring them to pay $20,000 Australian dollars!

United States Of America

On 19 April 2004, New York State's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced settlements with two major travel web sites, Priceline.com and Ramada.com.

In both instances, the companies had failed to implement guidelines published by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (www.w3.org/wai) that would have guaranteed the web sites' accessibility to people with disabilities.

Under the terms of the settlements, the companies will now implement the WAI guidelines and pay the State of New York $40,000 and $37,500, respectively, as costs of the investigation.

The UK RNIB said of this Legal action

'Service owners and web site developers in the UK should take heed of this warning: if it can happen in the US, it can and probably will, happen here. Our Disability Discrimination Act and the supporting codes of practice published by the Disability Rights Commission make it absolutely clear that web site owners are obliged by law to implement accessibility guidelines or face the possibility of legal action'.

Our Disability Discrimination Act has put a legal duty on service providers to ensure that disable people can use their web sites. Web site owners should act now to avoid becoming the subject of litigation in the UK'

You have been warned!

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