Accessibility Law in the United States
In the United States, there are no laws binding businesses to conform to any level of website accessibility. Many government and government-supported organizations are bound by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998, but these rules do not extend to private business concerns. However, even if you conduct business only in the United States, all ecommerce sites should try to conform to common website accessibility standards found in the WCAG 2.0, available at W3.org.
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ATGUY says:
This issue is actually quite nuanced for us-based e-commerce sites. This whole issue is evolving and there are clear signs that the Americans with Disabilities Act does apply to e-commerce websites.
In the case of Target.com vs. the National Federation of the Blind, Judge Marilyn Patel referenced California's Unruh Act and Disabled Person's act and in her 2007 order, allowing the case to advance to class action status, made the following statement:"What the court alluded to in its previous order, it will now hold explicitly for the purposes of class certification: the Unruh Act and the DPA reach Target.com as a kind of business establishment and an accommodation, advantage, facility, and privilege of a place of public accommodation, respectively. No nexus to the physical stores need be shown." National Fed’n of the Blind v. Target Corp. (N.D. Cal. 2007). As a result, the case did not proceed to court but Target & the NFB settled.
There was not a court hearing but in the settlement Staples.com reached in April, 2009 with the American Foundation for the blind and the American Council of the Blind, the language clearly implies that the motivation for Staples.com to provide an accessible website is the implication of the Unruh act and the DPA for its stores based in California.
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