Blind people, advocates slam company claiming to make websites ADA compliant | Hacker News Reader

Blind people, advocates slam company claiming to make websites ADA compliant

nbcnews.com

31 pointsdanso9 comments

>Shir Ekerling who's from Tel Aviv in Israel. Now Shir is a very interesting self-taught software developer whose passion has become business. Now isn't that the most awesome place to play, where passion and business and your life intersect and play out to be the place where you create and share with the world.

>Jeff Bullas: Now Shir started a range of companies but the recent one he's just launched which has raised over 12 million from one of the top capital firms in the world is with a company called accessiBe

https://www.jeffbullas.com/podcasts/33-making-the-web-access...

Here is an interview with the founder.

>in the army when I was thinking about the next thing that I've got to build when I'm released

I'm not really comfortable with Israeli companies run by former IDF soldiers injecting code into thousands of websites.

https://archive.org/details/CensoredIsraeliSoftwareSpyingOnU...

>adding a single line of code to the backends of websites. AccessiBe also offers support for websites that are sued and claims to bring them into compliance. The company boasts that over 132,000 websites use its product

Not that you're wrong, but think of the hundreds/thousands of 3rd party scripts that are injected into the pages of every commercial web property you visit - what are the backgrounds of all of the devs who wrote them...

>what are the backgrounds of all of the devs who wrote them...

Concerning.

Do you think the Israeli government was telling the truth when it denied using the phone call records transmitted to Amdocs' servers in Israel for intelligence purposes?

> I'm not really comfortable with Israeli companies run by former IDF soldiers injecting code into thousands of websites.

I don't want to alarm you but with mandatory service in Israel that means that nearly every single Israeli citizen is either a current or former IDF soldier.

It’s pretty unsettling the aim is to prevent getting sued - not actually help blind people. Compliance companies like AccessiBe are just scamming both sides.

The aim of the ADA is to give teeth and grounds for legal action to encourage accessibility. One of these methods is damages and penalties.

What is more interesting is that AccessiBe is the target of such suits and not the site owners using AccessbiBe.

Similar to the lawyers who seek out non-compliant websites, direct disabled people there, and then represent them in a lawsuit.

No, that's the opposite - a good thing that there should be more of.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com