 Wednesday, September 29, 2004 ( 6:50 PM ) Andy Websites are Not a Place of Public Accommodation, and Not Applicable to the ADA On Sept. 24, 2004 the U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit, dismissed the case of Access Now, Inc. and Robert Gumson vs. Southwest Airlines because it was not ADA compliant. Southwest was being sued because their website was not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Gumson, blind, sued because the virtual ticket counter could not be used by those who are sight impaired. Screen readers would not function properly because of the way the site was constructed. Gumson, and others, could therefore not check flights or get special web-only fares. Southwest contended that their website was not a place of public accommodation and was therefore not subject to the ADA requirements. The United States District Court, Southern District of Florida agreed with this in October 2002. Now the ruling has been upheld by the Eleventh Circuit. The appeal revolved only around the issue of inaccessibility of the website as a place of public accommodation. There was no association with a website and any other place of public accommodation, the court noted. And the ADA is ambiguous, it does not include websites and it was noted that “to fall within the scope of the ADA as presently drafted, a public accommodation must be a physical, concrete structure. To expand the ADA to cover ‘virtual’ spaces would be to create new rights without well-defined standards.” While the courts did not rule in favor of requiring websites to be ADA compliant, this does not mean you should ignore the special needs of your customers. Websites of the federal government must be compliant in most circumstances. There are many sites that will provide you with helpful information on making your site ADA compliant. # Friday, September 10, 2004 ( 8:15 AM ) Andy Things to do before Sept. 28, 2004 when the new $50 bills are available: 1) Get free educational materials from the Money Factory. 2) Train staff on the new $50 bill & security features so we don't get counterfeits. 3) Provide tellers with talk-offs so they may inform customers about the new bills. 4) Start getting commercial account orders to meet upcoming requests for the new bill and increase our supply as well. the Money Factory. is part of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. They have downloadable and online training materials so you can familiarize yourself, your staff and your customers with the new bill. I was able to tour the Fort Worth printing office and see them printing the new $50s. The detail is amazing. Did you know that a sheet of $50s gets scanned by a computer which compares 4 million pixels in one-third of a second against a "golden" sheet, one which is deemed perfect. More so, the final quality controls are done by people, not high tech scanners. The look and feel of the bills is as important to them, as it should be to you. # Wednesday, September 08, 2004 ( 8:10 AM ) Andy Do you want: a) to provide an anti-fraud resource of information to your customers b) to help protect them from internet scams c) to promote goodwill d) to do a-c inexpensively e) to take advantage of free resources provided by regulatory agencies f) all of the above. "f" is the correct answer if you want to provide information about phishing. The regulatory agencies have published a brochure for you. This is an excellent stuffer and should be handed out to all new internet banking customers, and perhaps all new customers who use a computer and the internet. It is also worth a link off your website. The dollars you spend implementing this may be saved again and again by not having to do error resolutions, closing and opening new accounts, etc. Best of all, your cost is minimal as the content and layout is already provided for you and is available in two versions. And being from the agencies, it also promotes credibility. Here is the table of contents: • How phishing works • How to protect yourself • What to do if you fall victim • For more information Please consider taking advantage of such a good resource. # |
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