Congress looks
at Internet and disabilities act
Copyright © 2000 Nando Media
Copyright © 2000 Associated Press
By JANELLE CARTER
WASHINGTON (February 9, 2000 8:25 p.m.
EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - The Internet's
constantly evolving technology makes it difficult to
develop regulations to apply the Americans with
Disabilities Act to the World Wide Web, a top Internet
industry official told Congress on Wednesday.
But advocates for the disabled argued
they were being denied access to the "window to the
world."
"The Internet is not just a
window on the world. More and more the Internet is the
world," Gary Wunder, a University of Missouri
programming analyst who is blind, told the House
Judiciary subcommittee. "It is where we shop and it
is where we make our living."
Dennis Hayes, chairman of the U.S.
Internet Industry Association, said the industry has
made progress but continued education is needed. He
asked Congress for money to fund research on ways to
bridge the gap.
"The application of the ADA to
the Internet in some kind of 'one-size-fits-all' mandate
is not the right approach," Hayes said. "The
answer to the problem of accessibility is not
regulation, but rather education and
participation."
The hearing came as lawmakers begin to
look at the impact the 1990 ADA law has on the Internet.
The world has become more computer
savvy since the law's enactment, and many Americans use
the Internet daily to communicate and do business.
Disabled groups complain that the
technology has grown without them.
In November, the National Federation
of the Blind filed a federal lawsuit against America
Online Inc., charging that the world's largest Internet
service is incompatible with software programs that
convert text to audio or Braille.
Wunder told of how he had to give up
his job as a manager because of the lack of compatible
software.
"What we need is achievable. What
we're asking is reasonable," Wunder said.
Some people have questioned whether
applying the ADA to the Internet would stifle its growth
and hinder free speech exhibited through the millions of
existing Internet Web pages. Others questioned how to
make ADA regulations apply when the Internet exists
beyond the United States.
Walter Olsen, a senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute, expressed concern that regulations
would result in "hundreds of millions" of Web
pages being torn down.
"It would be hard to find a
better way to curb the currently explosive upsurge of
this new publishing and commercial medium than to menace
private actors with liability if they publish pages that
fail to live up to some expert body's idea of
accessibility in site design," Olsen said.
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