media: Google under fire for excluding blind bloggers

Blog Herald, Australia
Monday, April 25, 2005

Google under fire for excluding blind bloggers

Google is under fire from blind bloggers due to the implementation of a
"captcha" at Blogger on April 12.

Google's visual captcha requirement means that blind bloggers can no longer
sign up for accounts without sighted assistance.

In an email to the Blog Herald, Joanie writes that ".the reason I am writing
[to] you about this is because bloggers are not aware of this issue, and my
writing about it in the blindness corner of the blogosphere is not enough to
let people know that what seems like a great way to reduce spam is also a
way to keep blind computer users from blogging."

The case highlights the need to be mindful that in the rush to block comment
spam and spam blogs, bloggers and blog hosts need to be aware that tools
such as captcha's can also block legitimate users from commenting on a blog,
or creating a blog in the way it was intended.

More information is available at
http://blog.carrolltech.org/archives/24




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Received on Monday, 25 April 2005 19:19:59 UTC