Re: Concerns with Accessibe joining W3C

Sheri i also am concerned about how much we are herring about this daly its
vary disruptive to the  progress we have made over the past few years.

frankly there most  recent  announcement of a search  engen   scairs me
more then any thing. after all its self  promotion because you can bet the
search engen is only going to find sites they are installed on. we need to
make a reel concerted efert to find a way for these toolbars to stop
\lucy
Lucia Greco
Web Accessibility Evangelist
IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
Follow me on twitter @accessaces



On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 10:04 AM Chris O'Brien <chrobrien@olg.ca> wrote:

> It would not be the first time an overlay company joined the ranks of the
> W3C.
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> Chris O’Brien
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> Director of Accessibility
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> Legal and Litigation
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> OLG Internal
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> *From:* Sheri Byrne Haber <sbyrnehaber@vmware.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, May 27, 2021 12:51 PM
> *To:* w3c-WAI-ig@w3.org
> *Subject:* Concerns with Accessibe joining W3C
>
>
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> This email originated outside of OLG. Do not open attachments or click
> links unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
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> Accessibe announced yesterday that they are planning on joining (or have
> joined, I’m not sure which) W3C.
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> Please refer to https://accessibe.com/company/roadmap
> <https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Faccessibe.com%2Fcompany%2Froadmap&data=04%7C01%7Cchrobrien%40olg.ca%7Cc75b56c6c6fa4579fd2008d921303fbc%7Cf271d9b4e54c46e182bd25d50afa3779%7C0%7C0%7C637577314243080309%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=iNAWnDYwrnYr1RVac0dyOUjv9Yj73yfwr%2BOFme6gAKw%3D&reserved=0>
> for details
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> For those of you not familiar with AccessiBe, they are probably the
> largest and certainly the loudest of the “accessibility overlay”
> companies.  They make claims about one line of code and a small monthly
> payment eliminating accessibility lawsuit risk. In reality, 10 % of
> lawsuits now being filed (including the lawsuit against ADP filed by
> Lighthouse) are against plaintiffs using these overlays because they can’t
> and don’t make a site WCAG compliant. There is a website called
> OverlayFactSheet.com started by Karl Groves, where over 400 accessibility
> professionals (including me) have signed a public commitment not to support
> solutions that take away user’s assistive technology and substitute another
> tool in its place.
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> Clearly, I have significant reservations about W3C accepting any
> overlay/tool/widget company as a member.  I’ve looked on the W3C website
> and do not see any membership code of ethics.  We did spend quite a bit of
> time developing one for IAAP.
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> Am I alone in this, or is this a general concern?
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> Thanks,
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> Sheri
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> Sheri Byrne-Haber (She/Her/Hers)
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> Staff II, Accessibility Architect
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