Search engine optimization and optimizing for accessibility are about doing what’s right for the user. While that is a shared objective, the business case for investing in SEO may be easier to understand than the case for improving your site’s accessibility.
Although the gains from enhancing your site’s accessibility may not be obvious, that doesn’t mean it isn’t crucial for your business and your audience. Many businesses have been sued over their sites’ lack of support for differently-abled users — a demographic that may rely on assistive technologies to navigate the web. When sites aren’t accessible, they are not only going to lose out on potential conversions from differently-abled users, but they also become vulnerable to legal action.
In a future article, we’ll take a look at exactly what SEOs can do to improve their clients’ accessibility, but for now, this article will examine the potential penalties businesses might face if they get served with an accessibility lawsuit, who is driving these legal actions, reasons why sites might get sued and how that has changed workflows for businesses and SEOs — all so that search professionals can adequately frame priorities for their clients.
The potential penalties
Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires places of public accommodation and commercial facilities to comply with ADA standards. While websites are not specifically mentioned, a judge could rule that websites fall under this regulation. The number of lawsuits that search professionals mentioned in interviews for this article suggests that plaintiffs believe accessibility for websites is guaranteed by law and/or that defendants will simply seek to settle out of court, which seems to be far more common. The maximum civil penalty for a first violation under title III is $75,000, with subsequent violations being capped at $150,000.
The penalties that a business can incur seem to range greatly. “It was a $10K fine,” Jessica, a Minnesota-based SEO who preferred to remain anonymous, told Search Engine Land, adding, “They [the client] were also informed that if they did not fix anything by the time someone checked again, they would be fined $50K no questions asked.”
“[The] total suit was for $50,000 but these legal teams are mostly looking for a settlement,” said Eric Wu, VP of product growth at Honey, referring to a previous client’s case. “In this case, the fine was $200 per person impacted,” he said, noting that fine limits can vary from state to state. “The legal team who filed the lawsuit claimed that 250 people were impacted,” he added.
“There wasn’t a specific fine,” said Jackson Whelan, principal at Terrier Tenacity Design & Marketing, “They were looking for damages which would have been determined in court.” Whelan also noted that the aim of the lawsuit seemed to be getting business owners to settle out of court.
Law firms may be preying on sites with poor accessibility
Businesses might assume that end-users are the ones filing these legal actions, and that they’re far and few between, but marketers who have experienced accessibility lawsuits are pointing to a more business-driven motive.
“I worked with four different bike shops that were sued by the law firm in this article,” said Noah Learner, product director at Two Octobers, “The letters sent to each shop were almost identical in language and content, to the point that, had they not referenced accessibility, our clients would have taken them for spam.”