Is Target Missing the Mark?
A recent court ruling regarding Target Corp.’s successful Web site (www.target.com) could have potential ramifications for all e-tailers.
A federal court in California has found that the Minneapolis-based company has not been compliant in providing access to the disabled, particularly the sight-impaired.
A federal judge in California agreed last month that a lawsuit filed by the National Federation for the Blind can proceed against the retail giant. The suit, initiated last year by a blind college student, also has the green light to invite other disabled Web users to join.
U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in San Francisco rejected Target’s request to dismiss the case. She also certified the case as a class action, ruling that all legally blind people in the United States who have been denied access to services at Target stores because of deficiencies in the company’s Web site can join the suit.
The NFB filed the suit on behalf of Bruce Sexton, a University of California, Berkeley student who claimed that he couldn’t access some features of Target’s Web site. “It was just gibberish for blind users trying to use the Web site,” said Larry Paradis, a lawyer for the federation.
Target has failed to use “technologically simple and not economically prohibitive” code embedded in Web sites allowing the blind to use software that vocalizes the content, according to court filings by the NFB.
From a technical standpoint, a site needs to add text mouse-overs (alt-text) behind images so that screen-reading software can speak what the images represent. Web experts estimate that adding this feature to a site of the magnitude of Target’s would cost anywhere from $800,000 to $2 million. Although not pocket change, it’s a charge the country’s fifth-largest retailer, with revenues of $60 billion annually, could easily absorb. So why would Target choose to spend those dollars, and probably more, on legal fees—and in such a public forum as federal court—instead?
Double-edged sword
“This lawsuit, assuming it is successful, is a double-edged sword,” said retail technology analyst Paula Rosenblum, a vice president with the Retail Systems Alert Group (www.retailsystems.com). “Complying with new regulations will either be a huge distraction for retailers as they rush to comply with a government mandate or will serve as an opportunity to not just comply with the mandate but take the opportunity to clean up their online and cross-channel acts.”
A recent study of the Web sites of the Fortune 100 found that only 12 sites were “fine,” meaning they comply with the requirements; 52 had “real problems”; and 36 were in the in-between “amber” stage. Target was among the 52 with “real problems,” and Wal-Mart, the nation’s top retailer, was in the amber zone.
While a complicated redesign is tricky (even with mouse-over alt-text, a design that incorporates speech software can make a site very difficult to navigate, experts say), an even bigger factor is the global marketplace.
The European Union has mandated strict accessibility rules for any retailer that wants to sell to the EU. Those rules are slated to take effect in 2010. For multinational retailers, at least, they will have to do it eventually, so why not do it now?
E-commerce coercion?
According to the NFB’s Paradis, “Target has argued that no law—neither the Americans with Disabilities Act nor state law—could require it to make its Web site accessible to the blind.”
Indeed, a few years ago, a blind litigant filed suit against Southwest Airlines, urging it to revamp its Web site to accommodate the sight-impaired. U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz declared that the American Disabilities Act applies only to physical spaces, not to the Internet. “To expand the ADA to cover ’virtual spaces’ would be to create new rights without well-defined standards,” Seitz wrote in a 12-page opinion dismissing the case.
Target has the means to do its best to have an accessible Web site, and many believe it should because it is just good business.
The question remains: How will the outcome of this suit affect the small, independent online retailer?
