Will Retail Giant Target Negatively Impact The Television Industry?

If you're an avid follower of tech-related news, you've no doubt heard by now of the California class action suit against retail giant Target. Target has been sued by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and one of its members, Bruce Sexton, under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and under two California state laws, the California Disabled Persons Act and the California Unruh Civil Rights Act.

Sexton and the NFB are arguing that Target.com is not accessible to blind users, breaching the three above mentioned laws. Apparently site images were missing alternative text that blind users rely on to decipher images, keyboard controls did not work and navigational headings were missing.

By law, Sexton has not received full and equal access to goods and services offered by Target. Target has in turn argued that the case be thrown out as they have made some improvements to their site as a result of the claim, but their request has been denied.

Now the point I'm getting to is that if the class action suit succeeds, the case could affect thousands of other businesses in the internet economy. And this is where the case becomes linked to TV. Namely web TV and video.

Robert Scoble, of Scobleizer, wonders whether the accessibility issues in California will have any ramifications in the future for the videoblogging industry. While not TV as we traditionally think of it, tradition is dead. Videoblogging and other forms of video media on the Web and the innovations in advertising they bring will eventually be the driving force for hardware manufacturers to start producing more technologies that will bring web TV to the high-def's sitting in our living rooms. I don't think "lean-in" type viewing will catch on anytime in the near future, but if large networks find efficient ways of monetizing content on the web as opposed to the airwaves, the way our TV's receive content may change entirely.

Scoble points out that virtually every video-content site springing up on the web is inaccessible to the blind. He points to YouTube as a prime example. Scoble's video blog airs on Kyte.tv and he states that if videos had to have transcripts attached to them for the benefit of the blind, videoblogging would no longer be a viable option for him. He would have to pay someone to do the transcribing as would the majority of other videobloggers out there. He wraps his article up by stating the obvious: if such a law were enforced, a technological solution would have to be developed that would automatically add transcripts to video clips. While not a very thorough analysis of the possibility, Scoble does raise an interesting question.

Will the California class action suit against Target affect the web television industry and would it have any indirect effects on the television industry in general? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Via Scobleizer, The Register

October 15, 2007

Will Retail Giant Target Negatively Impact The Television Industry?