The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a Federal law that is meant to eliminate discrimination against individuals with disabilities. It is usually applied to physical facilities. But does it apply to websites? This question is expected to be played out and defined in the courts over the next few years.

There have been a number of lawsuits about website accessibility for the blind and visually impaired.

Target.com: In 2006, the National Federation of the Blind, brought suit against Target. The suit charges that Target failed to make their ecommerce website accessible to the blind. The case focuses on the alleged lack of descriptive “alt” tags in Target’s HTML, making the site difficult to navigate with screen reading software. The use of image maps is also claimed to make the website inaccessible. In August 2008, Target agreed to pay damages of up to $6 million to the NFB as part of a settlement.

A key court decision that came out of the early motions for this case was that the court held that websites such as Target.com are required by California law to be accessible to the handicapped. They therefore allowed the lawsuit to proceed.

AOL.com: Previously, in 1999, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) filed a complaint against America Online (AOL) in federal district court alleging that AOL violated Title III of the ADA. AOL elected to make changes to their website rather than fight a court battle.

Online Tax Filing: In April 2000, the National Federation for the Blind (NFB) filed an ADA lawsuit against the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office, which provided links to four inaccessible online tax filing services on its Internal Revenue Service’s official Web site. They were accused of discrimination because of its use of anti-spammer CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). The four tax filing services (Intuit, HDVest, H&R Block, and CioCia) voluntarily agreed to begin making their Web sites accessible to the sight-impaired in time for the next tax season.

Southwest Airlines: in 2002, a federal court ruled that a website was not a place of “public accommodation” and dismissed a lawsuit against Southwest Airlines. The judge’s conclusion was that the Americans for Disabilities Act applied to “physical spaces, such as restaurants and cinemas”.

An accessible website has another major benefit. Search engines “read” your site like the blind and visually impaired, looking for text in links, images, and content. Well-designed accessible sites help search engines visit your site and gather the information they need to rank the page in search results.

The question of ADA coverage of Internet sites will undoubtedly continue to be a closely watched issue. Expect more lawsuits, especially for larger, more prominent corporations.