Ensuring digital liberty and justice for all.

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Lily Jramale. Back in 1990, in 1990, then President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act.

As the world's first comprehensive law for people with disabilities,

it was seen as making up for one area where the Civil Rights Act of 1964 fell short.

The stark fact remained that people with disabilities were still victims of segregation and

discrimination and this was intolerable.

Now the legislation passed at the dawn of the internet age is being adapted to ensure digital

access for everyone.

For deaf Americans that means ensuring access to

captions on videos posted to the web and the ability to resize text so people

with low vision can read it.

Consultant Nicholas Steinhout explained how the Department of Justice

is updating the rules.

Until just a few months ago, the ADA did not specifically and explicitly apply to the web at all.

The Department of Justice in March they came in and they basically said yes the ADA applies and the standard you have to follow is the web content accessibility

guideline version 2.1, where the DOJ applied this specifically is for state and local government.

So it's not a blanket, but we have good indications that your regular business, your regular website that are not government

related will also be covered by a coming up ruling.

Gotcha.

So you are a web accessibility consultant.

How do these rules run parallel with how you advise businesses on how to make their online services more accessible.

...