Re: New York Attorney General holds ADA applies to Web Businesses.

Jim Thatcher wrote:
> I was surprised to see no replies on this important announcement. Basically
> the Attorney General of New York is holding that the ADA applies to web
> sites as "places of public accommodations." 

This is good news indeed. Eliot Spitzer is visible in Internet 
circles as the Attorney suing Scott Richter - the optinrealbig 
spammer (or is that "high-volume email marketer"). Certainly 
Spitzer seems to have a better grasp of the nature of the Web, 
and that can only be a good thing. Even better when he gets 
results you've mentioned above.

However, if I am reading this right, Priceline and Ramada have 
reached a settlement with Spitzer, part of which is to make 
their websites accessible. No ruling has been made here as to 
ADA's applicability to websites - nothing as concrete as Martin 
v MARTA, and Access Now v Southwestern Airlines. As I understand 
it from the online press articles, the settlement agreement to 
make their websites accessible isn't based on the acceptance of 
wrong-doing.

Without doubt, this is certainly some positive news. Considering 
the other ADA-related decisions over the past few months (for 
instance the landmark decision that accessibility applies to the 
justice/legal system so courthouses have to be accessible), the 
overall trend has been toward applying ADA to these scenarios. 
This is going a long way to undoing the damage of the Southwest 
airlines verdict - but not yet a complete reversal just yet.


Which reminds me, did anything come out of the appeal on the 
Southwestern ruling?



Mike.