Target settled class-action litigation with the National Federati...
Target settled class-action litigation with the National Federation of the Blind concerning Target.com’s accessibility to blind visitors (WID Nov 6/06 p6) in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the company and group said. The company will create a $6…
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million fund from which the California settlement class can make claims, with each claimant eligible for up to two awards of $3,500 each. The federation will certify Target.com for blind accessibility -- its friendliness to so- called screen reader technology -- once the site finalizes changes early next year, and will perform “accessibility testing” on Target.com through 2012. The specific terms are somewhat burdensome for Target. The company will meet every six months with federation staff to discuss the federation’s “recommended updates” to Target’s “online assistive technology guidelines.” Each quarter the federation will run Target.com through automated monitoring, reporting any “deviation” from the assistive guidelines. The federation will report yearly the results experienced by five to 15 blind people of “varying skill levels” attempting defined tasks on the Target site. A technical consultant will have the discretion to analyze up to 40 pages of Target.com for accessibility, including the home landing page, search results, product detail page, “add to cart” page, browse page from a “major category,” login page, “address book” and even the “thank you” page that appears once an order is completed. Target must notify the federation when it develops new site templates, which also may be evaluated by the federation quarterly and yearly. Target will pay the federation $50,000 for the first year of monitoring and $40,000 for each year after. Target employees responsible for site coding must attend federation-run “periodic one-day training sessions” in accessibility, for which Target must pay the federation up to $15,000 per session. The company will assign an employee to handle accessibility complaints and give the federation a quarterly summary of complaints and their resolution status, though the summaries won’t be admissible in court. Target will make a $20,000 payment on behalf of Bruce Sexton, the original plaintiff, to the California Center for the Blind. Federation President Marc Maurer said Target “has already taken action to make certain that its Web site is accessible to everyone,” but the federation will help the company with “additional improvements” for blind visitors. Target.com President Steve Eastman said the company has improved site accessibility “as our online business has evolved.”