|
| Recent
Articles |
Video Influence On ECommerce
There were a few presentations from Internet Retailer about video that piqued my interest.
Dave Witzig from ShopNBC discussed the impact of video on their highly successful ecommerce site and made some very strong statements that should be of interest to everyone. ...
The Battle Between Fixed Prices And Auctions
Very interesting post from Nick Carr re. eBay's auctions vs. fixed price selling. In a nutshell, Carr, and BusinessWeek, state: "eBay's auctions are "a dying breed." Buyers and sellers are reverting to...
EBay's Lawsuit Against Craigslist
The public version of eBay's lawsuit against craigslist was filed this week, with a number of redactions (legal for 'censored bits') removed from the official filing, at the request of craigslist (which include the exact number of shares that eBay owns, the exact proportions of...
Wal-Mart Pulls SonyBMG & WMG Downloads
WalMart.com has gone mp3 only without product from SonyBMG and WMG. EMI and Universal catalog has been available DRM-free on the site since late summer. According the the site: Wal-Mart Music Downloads...
Top Online Retailers In January
Following the holiday bonanza, January can be a dead month for many retailers. Recent numbers from Nielsen revealed the ten companies that best survived (in terms of online conversion rates) the quiet time.
|
|
08.29.08
eCommerce Gets a Wake Up Call
 By
Chris Crum
All the way back in 2006, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Target could be sued over their site not being accessible to the blind. Now over half way through 2008, Target has reached a settlement with regards to the class action lawsuit that ensued.
The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) sued Target, and they settled for $6 million in damages. That's a lot of money for not including some "alt" tags, which was the biggest problem with Target's site. Dave Chartier at Ars Technica explains, "Specifically at issue in Target's case is a lack of 'alt' tags throughout its site, tags which are used by screen reading technology to help disabled users navigate web sites."
As part of the settlement, Target will have to make employees responsible for coding its site attend periodic accessibility training sessions conducted by the NFB. Target has to pay them for this as well.
This case will likely have a large impact on eCommerce as a whole. More lawsuits will probably start coming out of the woodwork. Online retailers will scramble to get their sites within compliance. Accessibility experts will start getting exponentially increased business for their consulting services. The blind will no longer be ignored on the web.
|
