Is this the precedent many Web developer's have been waiting for? A recent lawsuit (referenced on Webstandards.org) has been filed against The Target Corporation's current Web site (Target.com). This lawsuit calls out the site's lack of accessibility for users with special needs -- in this case the visually impaired.

The World Wide Web consortium (W3C) currently outlines very specific, tiered guidelines for creating accessible Web sites. Unfortunately, the W3C is not a governing body -- they have no authority to enforce these guidelines -- only to offer them as suggestions for best practice. And also unfortunately, accessiblity is one of the most overlooked aspects of Web development. Is it time for the goverment to step in and regulate accessibility on the Web?

For Web development companies that already do their job -- keep up with current trends, W3C recommendations, and technological advancements -- this was a long time coming. For them, this is somewhat of opportunity -- both to rework current, non-compliant sites, and to offer a point of differentation from accessibility-unaware competitors. But for the others, the days of producing proprietary, poorly written code are over. What was laziness and unwillingness to stay current may ultimately be their downfall.

One interesting question is how such regulations would affect current sites? The Web seems, in the eyes of the general public, to occupy this nebulous region outside of the traditional products and services they are used to purchasing. A Web site is not really a product --it's not this tangible object that is produced and shipped of to retailers. It's not quite even software, where updates and changes are made in very distinct, incremental versions. Typically such currently-existing products would be exempt from such regulations retroactively taking effect.

On the flip side, a Web site is not really a service either -- customization exists, but updates and changes are generally not made on a per-user basis. In such cases, traditional services would be expected to comply with new regulations rather quickly.

Instead, the majority of the work is done upfront -- the site is designed and developed in a beginning phase. But upon launch, the site is continuously updated and maintained as the need arises. How would such a governing body determine whether a site developed in 2002 is responsible to accessibility regulations created today?