National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corporation

National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corporation was a class action lawsuit in the United States that was filed on February 7, 2006 in California state court, and subsequently moved to federal court. The case challenged whether the limitations the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 imposes on businesses also apply to e-commerce websites. The plaintiff, National Federation of the Blind , sued Target Corporation, a national retail chain, claiming that blind people were unable to access much of the information on the defendant's website, nor purchase anything from its website independently.

Pre-Trial Negotiations and Filing

In May 2005, the NFB wrote to Target, asking for it to make its website accessible to people who are blind. The NFB claimed that Target could make its website accessible by making it comply with either the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board's Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 standards, specifically its use of the alt attribute for clickable images featured on the website. For example, when a blind user visiting this website selected an image of a Dyson vacuum cleaner using his or her tab key, the voice synthesizer on the computer would say "Link GP browse dot html reference zero six zero six one eight nine six three eight one eight zero seven two nine seven three five 12...
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