- From: David Woolley <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk>
- Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 08:19:05 +0000 (GMT)
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Financially within the predominantly capitalist states. I think you probably mean market versus planned economies. In any case I'd be surprised to find a non-capitalist state where they have financial power either, especially one that permits the general public to access the web. Remember Rumanian orphanages. More importantly, in market economies (and China++, the largest nominally communist country, is a market economy these days, especially for the web) you have to provide the financial power *before* commercial web sites will take notice of your clients, and that is outside the scope of W3C. Also, those sites that do take advantage of such financial power are very likely to be rather sleazy, relying on their customers not having good purchasing judgement. (Most commercial web site are actually already heavily dumbed down in terms of real information about products.) Sites providing non-commercial information## (basically governmental sites) need an audience capable of utilising that information - at the very least pitching the information down involves a complete alternative site, if you are not going to talk down to those who can understand the in depth information. That leaves vanity sites, which do what they want, and propaganda sites. I seem to remember seeing news articles about various hate based political organisations actively recruiting people with learning disabilties, albeit face to face rather than through the web. Unfortunately, Jon's told me that he ignores all but my shortest replies, so he's probably left me by now. ++ Looking at the structure of Chinese mainland web sites, I would say they had very much the same accessibility profile as UK commercial sites. ## Search engines are selling advertising, not providing free information. As such, they have to be pitched at those with the financial power to spend money with their advertisers. (They may also be selling market research data.)
Received on Thursday, 1 November 2001 09:13:29 UTC