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The National Federation of the Blind, America’s most powerful civil rights and advocacy group for the visually impaired has launched a scathing attack on web accessibility overlay market leader accessiBe, accusing the company of engaging in “harmful” practices.
Israel-based accessiBe provides a web overlay solution that sits on top of web pages for the purposes of automatically scanning and reformatting them to ensure they are accessible and able to work with assistive solutions such as screen readers and keyboard navigation. The company’s core proposition is that it can help a site achieve compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for as little as $49 per month through the deployment of an AI-based solution that involves injecting one line of code into a website’s backend.
On Thursday, the NFB issued a statement including the following: “This week, the Board of Directors reviewed accessiBe’s business practices at the urging of members who have researched and interacted with the company, and the Board believes that accessiBe currently engages in behavior that is harmful to the advancement of blind people in society.”
since this summary didn’t highlight is, here is the behavior that is causing alarm:
”The Board is deeply concerned that the company treats blind access technology experts shabbily and disrespectfully in private meetings and disparages the blind in the press and their other communications. It seems that accessiBe fails to acknowledge that blind experts and regular screen reader users know what is accessible and what is not. The nation’s blind will not be placated, bullied, or bought off.”
From a rights standpoint, this is great. An application that checks to see if websites are accessible according to the ADA will certainly hold site owners accountable, and likely increase the number of accessible websites. From an international politics standpoint though, it's not good that another country is able to come up with such a program when the country for which the ADA applies in doesn't even have one.