Net Nanny regulations examined

May 13, 1999

“The power of the Web is in its universality,” said Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World and director of the W3C Consortium. “Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”

That’s a noble ideal, say many of today’s Internet developers, site authors and hosts. In reality, however, if the concept were applied universally to all websites today, the costs, technological aspects, and overall Web expansion would become prohibitive, thus making the Internet less of an effective communication medium, rather than more comprehensive.

Nonetheless, that’s the goal of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) — to encourage “information providers to raise their level of accessibility” on the Internet to include persons with vision or motor-function disabilities. WAI, headed by Director Judy Brewer,
who is also the manager of technology initiatives for the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, has released a number of “recommendations” for content and structure,
as well as authoring tools.
The recommendations, according to WAI, are intended for all Web content designers and the group has already endorsed a list of changes, known as checkpoints, that each website should contain to make it all-inclusive.

At present, W3C and WAI are working closely with the Electronic and Information Technology Access Advisory Committee, a congressionally sanctioned government study group seeking ways to ensure that all websites either government-owned or conducting business with government comply with Sect. 508

Specifically, the regulations state that “individuals with disabilities who are members of the public seeking information or services from a federal department or agency to have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access to and use of the information and data by such members of the public who are not individuals with disabilities.”

Clearly, however, members of W3C and WAI want to make the rules apply to all websites on the Internet, not just government-owned or government-sanctioned sites.

In an earlier report, Brewer said she “believes the new standards will be a catalyst for commercial sites to improve access for the disabled.” Additionally, software giants like Microsoft are already developing programs and tools that could be adapted to existing web sites, to get them into compliance with the new rules should they become mandatory for all sites.

Brewer also believes Congress may eventually “step in” to require all websites to become more handicapped-accessible if the Internet industry does not voluntarily regulate itself.

WorldNetDaily contacted Brewer’s office, but was told she was attending the
Eighth Annual World Wide Web Conference in Toronto, Canada. An attempt to contact her by e-mail, per a recommendation from her office, was unanswered. Specifically, WorldNetDaily requested information about WAI’s intentions, and whether or not the group was actively seeking legislation by Congress to mandate W3C’s accessibility recommendations for both government and private websites.

Others, however, continue to question the wisdom and practicality of such sweeping new content regulations involving the Internet.

Scott Morice, technology director for CyberCellar, an Internet site developer and hosting service, said he believes in equal opportunity and access, but forcing website developers and creators to comply with so many new content rules would actually hurt, rather than help, overall Internet website accessibility.

“If site operators are forced to put so many new programs and so much more content on their websites, just to make them more accessible to a small minority of Internet users, I see major problems with access, telephone capabilities, and costs,” Morice said. “It’s just not practical.”

“If you look at just the upkeep and maintenance of an existing site,” he said, “when you try to turn the site into an additional audio source (for the hearing impaired), that alone is almost prohibitive.” Morice said a lot of that would depend on how “content-heavy” a specific site is, and whether or not there is an existing heavy use of graphics, text, and other Web features.

“Plus, you’d have to have another server in place to handle the extra (audio and streaming audio) loads.”

Morice, who is also a content and Internet site developer, told WorldNetDaily that some sites, depending on how large they were, “would take weeks, perhaps months at a minimum, to overhaul,” depending on how many of the new regulations would apply.

He said that sites required to display content — both written and audio — “in several languages, for example, would just about do most small- to mid-sized operators in.” The process would be too cost-prohibitive, he said, adding that cost-per-hour rates for developers “run anywhere from $35 an hour on the low end to about $150 or so an hour on the high end.”
He said, “none of this has even addressed what all of the added content will do to existing phone services.” He sees phone companies having to add extra capacity to handle the increased data transfer load, “and guess who’s going to pay for that?”

Morice also believes requiring websites to add so much more content “also would undoubtedly increase server space at the host end, as well as file sizes. Since some companies charge per megabyte or per megabyte transferred, I can’t imagine what those costs would rise to.”

Besides just cost, Morice thinks so much added content, coupled with strained phone capacity, would considerably slow down the transfer of data that forms websites when a user navigates the Internet.

“There are bound to be bottlenecks somewhere,” he said. “So while you’re improving Internet life for a smaller minority of users — handicapped Americans — you’re decreasing the benefits and comprehensiveness of the Internet for the majority of others. Overall, the net result would be a loss, not a gain, of Internet usage and flexibility.”