United States | So sue me

Lawsuits over disabled Americans’ access to websites have surged

They aren’t making sites easier to use, but some people are profiting

A wooden gavel surrounded by website symbols and icons
Image: Tomasz Woźniakowski
|NEW YORK

Bill Dengler is trying to become an Italian citizen. He has all the documents ready to go. But Mr Dengler, an American software engineer who was born fully blind, cannot make an appointment with the Italian consulate in San Francisco. Its booking system uses a colour-based calendar, which is not legible to his screen reader, a device that delivers a website’s content in audio form. And, perhaps because slots fill rapidly, rules prohibit him from hiring someone to make the appointment on his behalf.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “So sue me”

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