"The question ...is not whether the ADA applies to the Internet, but whether its application is going to be managed in an orderly way, so as to minimize costs and maximize benefits for all, or whether, under the pretext of deregulation, we are going to leave the process to inconsistency, chaos and fear."

The Council is an independent federal agency making recommendations to the President and Congress on disability policy. NCD first proposed and then drafted the original Americans with Disabilities Act.

"The ADA provides equal opportunity in employment, public accommodations, transportation, government services and telecommunications for individuals with disabilities," the NCD notes in a policy paper released July 10. "The law, which requires government websites to be accessible to people with disabilities, should be equally applicable to commercial and private websites." The paper goes on to spell out exactly why this is, examining government policy and relevant case law.

The Dept. of Justice, it notes, has argued for coverage of the Internet under Title III of the ADA in several amicus briefs and... has negotiated or approved several complaint settlements supporting access in cases involving non-physical location issues such as brokerage or credit card statement accessibility.

"A number of opponents of internet access have charged that the law does not specifically mention the Internet," says the Council. They point out that reading the law "to exclude the Internet, when the Internet never existed and Congress never thought of it one way or the other at the time it passed the ADA, would be analogous to holding that freedom of speech does not extend to movies since movies were not mentioned in the First Amendment, or that the Fourth Amendment could not apply to the privacy of telephone conversations because telephone wires do not come within the ordinary meaning of the words 'persons, papers and effects' used in the Fourth Amendment."

"By and large, the courts have not been friendly toward ADA plaintiffs alleging job discrimination," says the paper, "and many of the cases upholding the employer's right to refuse a job or to refuse an accommodation are harsh, but nowhere in the litany of reasons advanced in these court decisions for why workers with disabilities should be rebuffed is there a suggestion that Internet-oriented or Web-based performance issues or work settings are per se off-limits to the law's reasonable accommodation and nondiscrimination requirements."

Much of the argument, both for and against applicability of the ADA to the Internet, "appears to involve people talking past one another," says NCD.

"In the past we have been used to talking about the digital divide," says the Council. "The time has come to rephrase our inquiry, and to embrace the digital future for Americans with disabilities as fully as we have sought to grasp it for the population as a whole.

The paper explains the practical and economic arguments that should guide those who may be called upon to apply the law, and recommends strategies for implementing website accessibility without disruption and with benefit to consumers and businesses alike.

Read When The Americans With Disabilities Act Goes Online: Application of the ADA to the Internet and the Worldwide Web

Also read the NCD's Righting the ADA

Contact:
Mark Quigley, Director of Communications
National Council on Disability
202-272-2004

EXPERTS IN web access:

The Georgia Institute of Technology's Center for Assistive Technology & Environmental Access formed the Information Technology Technical Assistance & Training Center to promote the development of accessible electronic & information technology. Reach them at 1-866-948-8282 (Voice/TTY) or by email at webmaster@ittatc.org.

Judy Brewer
Director of the World Wide Web Consortium
Web Access Initiative
617-253-5884

Brewer's group develops web guidelines, conducts education and outreach on Web-accessibility solutions.

Kate Vanderheiden
Trace Research and Development Center
at the University of Wisconsin/Madison

Pam Gregory
Disabilities Issues Task Force
Federal Communications Commission
202/418-2498 or 202/418-1169 (TTY)
Email: pgregory@fcc.gov

Expert sources

The Digital Divide

Section 508

The Web Access Initiative

Commentary