BLU.ORG - 20 May 1998 Meeting Topic: Web Service Accessibility

[Guy W Bzibziak]

Keywords: Law  Internet  Accessibility  WWW  ADA  BLU  UNIX 

Who: Boston Linux & Unix
What: Web Service Accessibility: Disability Law and Public Duties
Presented by: Lar Kaufman (lark at walden.com)
Date: 20 May 1998, Wednesday
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Place: M.I.T. Building 3-133

On May 20th, BLU.ORG will be presenting Lar Kaufman, co-author of "Running
Linux", in another segment on the Internet and the law --
Web Service Accessibility: Disability Law and Public Duties

Lar Kaufman's presentation will discuss duties of WWW service 
and content providers using facilities accessible to the public
under the Americans with Disabilities Act and other relevant US 
statutes to provide reasonable accomodation for disabled 
individuals to internet services and information.  Those using 
the internet as a public facility in commerce, or benefiting from 
public funded research or facilities have a duty to make their 
services and published intellectual properties reasonably available 
to all users.  But doing so is beneficial to all internet users and 
service providers, not just the disabled user.

WWW technologies and Web administration practices that create
access barriers for disabled users include denial of text-based 
navigation aids, content framing, and exclusive use of proprietary 
data formats.  These practices and simple solutions (reasonable 
accommodation) are discussed.  Some tools and techniques for 
extracting information "trapped" in proprietary formats for your
personal and fair use is also discussed.

The costs of proprietary data file formats to all users of 
public resources will be discussed, and include bandwidth 
overhead of graphics transmissions and the concealment of 
information from limited "knowbot" search utilities, thus making
data less accessible to all.

Time permitting, the current lack of enforcement, software 
developer practices, monopoly and other economic pressures 
will be examined, and ethical and philosophical considerations 
discussed.
 
Lar Kaufman is a documentation consultant with some 17
years experience in computer and network documentation,
a law student at Boston University School of Law, and 
co-author of Running Linux, 2nd Ed. 1996, O'Reilly & Assoc.

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For Directions to our meeting, point your browser to:

	http://www.blu.org


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