When George H.W. Bush signed into law the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits discrimination in “any place of public accommodation,” the internet barely existed. While, initially, people with physical handicaps sued restaurants, hotels and other businesses to force them to install wheelchair ramps and make other similar accommodations, a new trend has emerged.

Now, businesses are being sued under the ADA based on claims that their websites are places of public accommodation, and are not fully accessible to people with various impairments. Often, these lawsuits center on the fact that, although a visually impaired person can use a “screen-reader” to convert text on a website to audio, if there is no subtitle to a picture or image, such a user would have no way of knowing that a picture or image exists, let alone what it might be.

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