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[martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com]

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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Shirley wrote:

>Also, Martin, the laws vary from country to country. It seems that the UK
>has tighter laws about accessibility and websites, and I just heard that
>Canada has stricter laws than we do in the U.S., too. Here in the U.S.,
>only government-related sites are required by law to follow our U.S. 508
>guidelines. U.S. businesses aren't required to follow the guidelines yet.

Sorry, Shirley - that's a misconception. Businesses are required to follow
ADA, and the available standards are either US508 or WAI (although I'd
guess that 508 will be used more often).

Take a look through the examples I cited the other day, or alternatively
through the full text of the Act:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/statutes/ofccp/ada.htm
you'll see the whole of Title III applies to commercial organisations, and
Title I applies to employers, including private employers with 15 or more
employees.

I think what a lot of people do is confuse the law (ADA) which sets out the
principle that you may not discriminate against people with disabilities
with the regulations as applied to web (Section508). Now those regulations
are explicitly designed for government programs, but they are used as the
standard to inform and assess the compliance with the principles.

If anyone's still unclear on this, or doesn't have the time to read all the
legislation, might I suggest the new Glasshaus book on accessibility?

Cheers
Martin

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