The number of ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Title III claims going through federal courts is increasing, with a jump of 40% forecast for 2014. In the past, civil attorneys have targeted physical compliance cases, such as access ramps and ATMs. Now, they realize that it is more cost effective to stay in the office and target the owners of non-compliant websites, rather than take on a more expensive class action suit.
What could this cost your business?
The DoJ (Department of Justice) will not propose new regulations governing website accessibility until next year and until then will likely adopt the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) from W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). These guidelines are widely considered to represent best practice for the industry and have been extensively updated through collaboration over the past 20 years. Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT) paid out over US$6M in 2008 to settle a landmark case brought by NFB (National Federation of the Blind) and led to many more suits being filed every year. If your business is in California, Florida or New York, the prevailling non-discriminatory state laws make a suit more likely.
How can Jabico Enterprises help?
No one wants to invite a lawsuit, especially when it is so easy to remedy the situation, improve your website user experience and attract a new community to your site. Jabico Enterprises has developed W3C compliant websites for many years and will happily provide you with an initial audit of your outward facing website for compliance. We can give you an idea of what it takes to get your website compliant. For most eCommerce, or informational, websites this will be sufficient. However, Jabcio has the necessary experience in developing inward facing webserver-based business process functionality for our clients and can audit your entire business for compliance.
If you would like to take advantage of this offer from Jabico, please contact us.