In Compliance—Out of Business

Among the greatest contributions the Internet has made to our lives is that it enables contact between small businesses and the millions of potential customers who in any earlier era would have been oblivious to their existence. The Web has lowered market barriers that once insulated large companies from competition; this has helped not only small businesses but also the customers they can now reach. The California legislature, however, is set to pass a digital accessibility law that would hamper small businesses online and drive some offline altogether.

AB 1757, currently held in suspension by the State Senate Appropriations Committee, would make businesses—and the web developers and Internet vendors who help them set up shop—vulnerable to devastating lawsuits if they find themselves out of compliance with complex technical guidance intended to make websites usable for visually impaired people. If, according to the bill, a company “fails to provide equally effective communication or facilitate full and equal enjoyment of the entity’s goods and services to all members of the public,” plaintiff attorneys can file lawsuits against it “for actual damages suffered, exemplary damages, a civil penalty, and attorney’s fees.”

As its standard, the state legislature has adopted World Wide Web Consortium guidelines never intended to become law. The requirements range from text-to-voice capabilities to color schemes to font characteristics. For small businesses—think of a local bakery that wants to offer deliveries, an artisan who could sell his wood carvings nationally, or an accountant who seeks more flexibility striking out on her own—they could prove insurmountable.

AB 1757’s proponents argue that because much of our commerce now takes place digitally, the visually impaired deserve access to websites in the same way that people who use wheelchairs deserve ramps to enter brick-and-mortar stores and restaurants. It is a fine sentiment perhaps, but one that cuts against the very value that the Internet provides as a means to low-cost market expansion.

Businesses want more customers, not fewer. If setting up an accessible website that any person on Earth could use were cost-free, businesses would do it, lest they miss out on a profit. But in the real world of scarcity and tradeoffs, firms must weigh costs against benefits. Providing customers with features tailored to their unique needs is unrealistic for small businesses and startups.

As a company grows and more resources become available, it can smooth out the edges of its online operations and hire specialists—both legal and technical—who can help it add new customers with particular needs profitably. For that reason, big businesses aren’t nearly as worried about AB 1757 as the little guys are.

If AB 1757 goes into effect in 2025, small businesses suddenly will face a choice of expensively re-designing their sites by contracting with compliance experts or risking lawsuits that bankrupt them. Facing thousands of dollars in spending for a new website or the risk of a lawsuit running into the tens or hundreds of thousands, many businesses will simply go offline. Others will close entirely—and thus become inaccessible to everyone.

While we often think of e-commerce as the domain of the tech-savvy, in the 2020s almost all small businesses use the Internet in one form or another; most do so piecemeal, using the services of larger firms like WordPress, Shopify, or Big Commerce as a starting point, then adding special design themes and functional plug-ins that suit their specific purposes.

Kelli Anderson’s small business, California Skincare Supply, uses embedded YouTube videos for product demonstrations and aesthetician training. She also has a Google review plug-in that allows potential customers to see what experiences others have had. What someone like Kelli probably wouldn’t realize, or have any reason to think about until now, is that while this mixing and matching is the easiest way to market a company online, it can undermine the performance of certain accessibility functions that a platform like WordPress or a plug-in provider like Elf Sight might tout.

Even businesses that make an effort to comply could find themselves afoul of the new law when a software company pushes an update that doesn’t play nicely with their other systems. Just think of the mess that can engulf even the largest businesses, like Delta Air Lines, after CrowdStrike pushed its ill-fated July 19 update. As San Jose-based web developer Kathy Long told me, “[California’s legislators] have no idea what they’re doing to these businesses.”

AB 1757 seeks to help people who might struggle to navigate a website because of visual impairment, but in practice it could soon make e-commerce less accessible to everyone.

Photo: zlikovec / iStock / Getty Images Plus