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

Phil wrote:
"In this New York case, it seems that the policy under which the complaint was filed
was the ADA, but I'm confused why the 508 Web standard wasn't chosen or cited as the standard since it is also a Federal policy like the ADA."
"Does the State of New York or New Jersey actually specify WCAG 1.0, or was that just used by AGO?
So if I incorporate in a state that uses the 508 web standards, am I held to those guidelines, or if I incorporate in a state that uses the WCAG 1.0 standards,
am I held to those standards?  Can I pick which state (or country) I choose to operate under?  Can I pick which standard (or level a double A, or triple
AAA) I choose to follow?"
Sailesh:
Arguably private businesses are  covered by Title III of the ADA as they are public accommodations. Sec 508 applies to electronic and IT purchases / acquisition by the feds   and does not apply to  cases like these.
State gov policies too apply to state agencies only and different states have different policies. See (1) . As per this doc, New York apparent policy is  "planning and procurement that will ensure equal access to electronic and information technology".

In applying the general " should be accessible to PWD" principle, the NY-AGO chose to   follow the WCAG 1.0 . Yet in Priceline's case it is interesting to note that it prescribed a skip nav link which maps more closely to Sec 508  para O than  to checkpoint 13.6 which is P3.
*1. http://www.ilru.org/online/handouts/2003/Brown2/Information_Technology.html
Sailesh Panchang
Senior Accessibility Engineer 
Deque Systems,11180  Sunrise Valley Drive, 
4th Floor, Reston VA 20191
Tel: 703-225-0380 Extension 105 
E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com
Fax: 703-225-0387
* Look up <http://www.deque.com> *