Perhaps its just me but the older i get the more concerned i become with the state of law in our country. Laws are no longer put in place merely to keep order, and protect citizens but they are also put into place to placate corporations, ie the Mickey Mouse Copyright saga. Or they can be put in place to regulate that which the legislators themselves have no understanding of. Most of these slippery slope problems boil down to one problem. The original decision had a valid point or argument for whatever cause
they esposused, but has the very real possibility of and for abuse. 

Take for example the recent Target disability lawsuit, which can be seen as having a valid point. Yes the website was inaccessable to people who were blind. They could not use the site at all even with the proper programs on their computer. But here is where my problem lies. To criminalize the act of creating a non accessible website you are demonizing an act of an inherently visual medium. Whats next hearing impaired lawsuits against iTunes, or visually impaired lawsuits over flickr.

Yet another front to look at this problem from is this. There is no mandate that blind people must shop at Target, if anything by having a non accessible website Target is loosing business. Government websites, and utilities need to be accessible, but to mandate that a business needs to do so is a bit far reaching. I could be completely wrong and this post will be edited on the morrow to correct grammar and have a fresh look at the logic, as always your mileage may vary. Random Rant over.

~Paul

Technorati Tags: coffee