- From: Joe Clark <joeclark@joeclark.org>
- Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 11:51:15 -0500 (CDT)
- To: WAI-GL <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
> Example 1. A document that exists in English, French, and German
> versions.
>
> A corporate Web server identifies the country where a user's IP address
> is located. It displays the site in the appropriate language. A user's
> screen reader automatically uses the appropriate pronunciation rules,
> based on the presence of a language-identifier in the document.
We *really* don't want to encourage people to use IP lookup to guess at a
user's country of origin. (For more than a decade, every CompuServe user
appeared to be living in Columbus, Ohio. How accurate is that?)
A notorious and maddening example is of course Showtime <http://SHO.com/>,
which tells you "We at Showtime Online express our apologies; however,
these pages are intended for access only from within the United States,"
whatever the hell that means. (Won't they be surprised to learn that my
Lynx install runs out of the United States, letting me read it just fine?)
Country lookups break the universality of the Web.
The *correct* example to use here is HTTP content negotiation using the
browser's default language. Yes, I know Jukka reminds us that most people
set this up wrong, but that's not our problem.
--
Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org
Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>
Expect criticism if you top-post
Received on Thursday, 27 May 2004 12:51:16 UTC