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[Liliane Hubright]

As the world increasingly becomes digital in everyday life, whether due to improvements in technology or the coronavirus pandemic, the concept of digital inclusion and web accessibility is a growing concern for many individuals and businesses. About 15% of the world population and more than 20% of that of the American population currently live with a form of disability. Thankfully, like in America, many countries have now ratified their non-discrimination and digital accessibility laws to include the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as a standard to follow in making websites and applications accessible to people with disabilities. Most international web accessibility laws now demand websites and applications are perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust enough to work for people with disabilities.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 have continuously referenced the WCAG 2.0 AA standard over the years. Non-conformance with WCAG standards is similar to not providing equal access to disabled users of your website which then triggered web accessibility lawsuits against such businesses. It is, unfortunately, true that the threat of a lawsuit has been a major reason many organizations make the effort to make their websites accessible. Many disabled users and advocates have championed this course over the years leading to high-profile web accessibility lawsuits. Here are the largest prominent cases we hope businesses (large and small) can learn from.

The lawsuit alleged Target of violating the California Unruh Civil Rights Act (California Civil Code Section 51 et. seq.), California Disabled Persons Act (California Civil Code Section 54 et. seq.), and The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)- accessibility laws that require businesses and any space to be accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities.

One of the high-profile cases in web accessibility happened In 2015 when the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University before the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The association alleged Harvard and MIT of violating U.S. accessibility laws (the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508) by not providing appropriately accurate and comprehensive captioning for online course materials (video and audio files). This simply denies people who are deaf and hard of hearing equal access to free online programming.

In one of the first ADA website compliance lawsuits that established that accessibility should include online properties just as physical businesses, the National Association for the Deaf (NAD) filed a lawsuit against the online television and movie streaming giant Netflix in Massachusetts in 2012. This was to exempt customers with hearing impairments or deafness from their online services.

Winn-Dixie had to make its website compliant with WCAG 2.0 AA standards and set aside $250,000. Courts also require Winn-Dixie to ensure annual training for their employees on website accessibility, require third-party content on the site to be accessible, and adopt a web accessibility policy.

This 2014 case represents the first where the Department of Justice (DOJ) intervened in accessibility regarding mobile apps and web pages. H&R Block entered into a consent decree with the DOJ and the plaintiffs which demanded it pay $100,000 in damages and make the website and apps accessible by following WCAG 2.0 AA before the 2015 tax season. H&R Block was also made to appoint a web accessibility coordinator and offer web accessibility training to employees.

Pirani claims that Netflix stock dipped around 21% in January after the streaming service revealed that it did not add as many subscribers during the fourth quarter of 2021 and that it was lowering its expectations for net subscriber adds during the first quarter of 2022.

Netflix stock dropped an additional 35% in April, meanwhile, after the company revealed it had actually lost 200,000 subscribers during the first quarter of 2022, according to the Netflix class action.

Cory Watson Attorneys took a leading role in the C-8 litigation involving chemicals that DuPont used in Teflon production. Cory Watson Principal Jon C. Conlin was appointed to serve as Co-Lead Counsel, and successfully represented more than 3,500 plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit.

C-8 has been linked to obesity, infertility, and dangerous diseases such as kidney cancer, testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and thyroid disease.

Cory Watson Attorneys successfully fought for more than 3,500 clients against DuPont to receive a $671 million settlement. The Cory Watson litigation team also included principal attorney Beth Chambers, Kristian Rasmussen, and attorney Nina Towle Herring.

For more than 35 years, Cory Watson has successfully represented clients across the U.S. in major contamination cases involving powerful Fortune 500 companies such as DuPont. Our experienced team of attorneys is knowledgeable in the scientific facts and medical issues critical to these cases.

Learning from home has its challenges, but here are some tips and strategies recommended by USF Instructional Technology faculty members James Hatten, PhD, and Sanghoon Park, PhD, to help you successfully navigate the transition to online learning.

Studying with a group of peers in the library or simply receiving on-the-spot clarifications from classmates is obviously not possible during this time. However, forming virtual interactions through platforms such as GroupMe or Microsoft Teams is a feasible action you could take in order to maintain that sense of collaboration and community.

While there are various steps you can take to create a routine and maintain productivity, every now and then a lack of motivation may set in and you could find it difficult to accomplish the task at hand. Dr. Park, whose research is focused on developing motivational interventions for online learners, explains why exactly students may experience this.

You may experience a lack of motivation when you feel unconnected to an assignment or task being given. Dr. Park encourages students who are confronted by this feeling to think critically about how that assignment could be useful in helping them in the future.

Remember that individuals everywhere are going through many of the same experiences you are right now. Have patience towards those who might not know how to set up a video chat or who may be taking a longer time to adjust to this "new normal."

To assist USF students with the academic and wellness support needed during this unprecedented time, the university has prepared a toolkit of information and links to helpful resources on all campuses. Visit the Academic Continuity website to learn more.

The settlement was reached with Facebook's parent company, Meta Platforms Inc. following a lawsuit, which alleged Facebook made users' data available to third parties without their permission and claimed the platform did not monitor or enforce third-party access to the data they received. That includes the collection of data by now-defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which went on to be used for political advertising on the platform.

An email sent to Facebook account holders said that the change affects individuals who deleted one or more Facebook accounts in the class period of May 24, 2007 and Dec. 22, 2022 before creating a new Facebook account in the same period.

In addition to providing some personal information, as well has the preferred method of payment, class-action members will be asked to submit their Facebook username, along with any phone numbers and email addresses associated with the account.

Each eligible claimant will be assigned "one point for each month" they had an activated Facebook account during that window. Once the total number of claimants and their points have been determined, along with the total settlement fund amount, each person will then receive a designated amount, multiplied by their total number of points.

It's no secret that plaintiffs' firms have been developing legal theories relating to third-party software technologies used on websites. This includes a recent spike in lawsuits alleging that websites running the Meta "Pixel" code are violating the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) by sharing information about visitors' video viewing habits and history with Meta. These lawsuits continue the growing trend of consumer privacy class action litigation across the country and represent a significant risk to a wide variety of companies. This alert provides an overview of the VPPA and best practices for your company to mitigate these potential risks.

The VPPA was enacted by Congress in 1988 after then-Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental history was leaked to a news organization without his consent. Under the VPPA, a "video tape service provider" is generally prohibited from disclosing the personally identifiable information (PII) of a consumer derived from specific video materials or services without their consent. A video tape service provider includes any person engaged in the business of the rental, sale, or delivery of video tapes or "similar audio-visual materials." The open-ended language of that definition has allowed the VPPA to evolve with technology over the last 35 years and is now being used by plaintiffs' counsel to target companies in a variety of industries.

Over a decade ago, an upsurge of lawsuits alleging VPPA violations against online video streaming services, such as Hulu and Netflix, led to an amendment to the VPPA allowing video tape service providers to disclose PII to third parties after obtaining informed, written consent from consumers.

Plaintiffs' lawyers are creatively interpreting the definition of businesses that deliver audio visual materials to apply to modern technologies that allow video files to be accessed by website visitors in addition to online sales of DVDs or other visual media. Therefore, under these theories, any business that has a website with video capabilities could potentially be a video tape service provider"under the VPPA.

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