If approved, this will be a win for this community.
In my early days of web developing, we didn’t have companies like this, but someone asked me if I knew of AccessiBe which would make my site accessible.
I dismissed it, as I didn’t know who they were, but then I would find things on web sites that you could supposedly press a shortcut key to enable what would be known as screen reader mode.
I didn’t really have difficulties although it did say i could have the page read to me and other things. I did try it, but never got it to work. I did go back to my regular tools and what was taught to do instead.
While this article is older and I’m just seeing it, I feel that this is worth sharing. This is because I’ve been following this through Lainey Feingold who is an accessibility lawyer and others who have posted articles about these things.
In a proposed order, the FTC would require accessiBe to pay $1 million that may be used to refund the company’s customers, and prohibit accessiBe from overstating the capabilities of its tools. The order would also mandate that accessiBe “clearly and conspicuously” highlight connections to endorsers of its services.
“Companies looking for help making their websites [accessibility] compliant must be able to trust that products do what they are advertised to do,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection, said in a statement. “Overstating a product’s … capabilities without adequate evidence is deceptive, and the FTC will act to stop it.”
I know there are many companies out there, or at least a few that supposedly do this, but I have never used this technology on my pages.
What I didn’t know, was the fact that this was an AI based company. They built something to supposedly shield them from lawsuits.
New York-based accessiBe sells an AI-powered plug-in that it says can make any website compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), a set of technical criteria used to assess website accessibility. The company pitches its services as a shield against lawsuits for noncompliance with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), the federal civil rights law that protects people with disabilities from discrimination.
The article talks about who started the company. BTW, in no way do I blame the companies mentioned within this paragraph for the fact they were mislead by this company. That paragraph states:
Founded in 2018 by entrepreneurs Dekel Skoop, Gal Vizel, and Shir Ekerling, accessiBe has managed to raise $58.5 million in venture capital from investors, including Los Angeles-based private equity firm K1.
So they raised 58 million to prove that they can make a tool that now they’re being sued, fined and whatever else may happen? Damn. The paragraph continues:
At one point, accessiBe’s customers included Pillsbury, Benadryl, Playmobil, the Los Angeles Lakers, and government agencies like the Louisiana Department of Health.
Again, I can’t blame any of these companies, it is not their fault that they were supposedly mislead about something they thought would help them, not hinder them.
It continues:
But many advocacy groups and customers say that accessiBe’s products don’t work.
No fucking shit!
One person sued if my memory served me and you can find the blog post from July 2023 right here. Someone was sued for voicing facts, and I trust the gentleman who was named because I’ve never used said tools. If I remember correctly, didn’t they have to resolve this too?
Speaking of testing accessibility Reddit claimed to ask disabled people to test accessibility of its product but advocates said no. This was also in 2023. To date, my knowledge tells me that Reddit has not had to pay for its failings.
And speaking of accessibility, I blogged in July about the fact that accessibility is a priority and I’ve heard nothing since whether it was software we can use or otherwise.
While that blog post did say that it had to do with seccurity, software, web sites or anything else should be accessible because you don’t know who will visit your page.
The reason I bring these up is that this company should not be the only one that needs to pay, Reddit and others who do not make accessible products for us to use should be slapped if the FTC has jurisdiction to do so. The issue though is that these companies aren’t advertising that they are accessible when they aren’t, AccessiBe says they are and they do need to pay.
This is actually interesting as I’ve not seen this in my experiences, but a paragraph here states that web sites could not be navigated by a screen reader because of these tools.
Tools like accessiBe’s can prevent the screen reading applications used by blind and low-vision users, which read out loud what’s on websites, from reading pages correctly — and even render some web pages unnavigable. Customers have sued accessiBe in class action lawsuits, alleging that the company’s products failed to make their websites fully compliant with ADA standards.
Have you had negitive dealings with this product or other similar ones?
The article continues:
During its 2021 convention, the National Federation of the Blind described accessiBe’s marketing and business practices as “disrespectful and misleading.” That same year, 400 blind people, accessibility advocates, and software developers signed an open letter calling on companies that use automated services like accessiBe’s to stop.
In 2021, more than 400 companies with an accessibility widget or overlay on their website were sued over accessibility, per digital accessibility provider UsableNet.
AccessiBe isn’t the only vendor selling automated accessibility tools for websites. But it has been accused of adopting a “defensive,” dismissive style of engagement with the accessibility community — and of making lofty claims.
The final thing I’ll highlight is this.
According to the FTC, accessiBe not only fell short of its promises to clients, but engaged in misleading marketing. accessiBe “deceptively formatted third-party articles and reviews” to appear as if they were independent opinions by impartial authors, said the agency in a press release, and failed to reveal “material connections” to supposedly objective reviewers.
What the hell? Seriously?
To read the complete article, please read Tech Crunch’s article titled FTC orders AI accessibility startup accessiBe to pay $1M for misleading advertising.
I would just tear this company apart, except I really can’t as I’ve never installed the thing and I really never used it to my knowledge except on some sites like Google’s at one point or somewhere else. I don’t know if it was them or something else.
If this company should get the stupid fuck award, then I’m curious to hear your thoughts, and you can sound off here or on my comment line at (888) 405-7524 or (818) 527-4754.
If I don’t answer live, leave those messages! Have fun!
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