I felt the same way…frustrated with shopify…but in the end, when I
really learned more about it, I realized that it’s somewhat out of
Shopify’s control. It has alot to do with what colors you’re using on your
site, and using alt text for photos (which I always ignored)…and shopify
has no control over most of that.
In the end, I contacted the plaintiff’s attorney and told them that we were
in the process of making all the necessary fixes to our site (which I did
do with the help of my web developer) and that we were a small family owned
business (which is true) and they decided to dismiss the case. There are
lots of tools available to check your web pages for compliance, and now I
do that quarterly. I use https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wave-evaluation-tool/jbbplnpkjmmeebjpijfedlgcdilocofh
My main beef is with the fact that these lawsuits are able to be brought
before a court before the company was even contacted. We NEVER received
anything before being served…no email, no phone call…NOTHING asking us
to make changes to our site to make it compliant…just BOOM, a Lawsuit.
I do agree that these are BS, frivolous lawsuits…but everyone’s situation
is different. It sucked, and was super stressful…both my husband and I
had many sleepless nights…I was scared to death that it would put us
under. I definitely popped some bubbly when we found out it was going to be
dismissed!!!
Just stumble upon this thread, so wait a minute, should I shutdown my site until this fixes are done ??? I don’t want to just get served. Please advise
I am sorry you were sued. We were served a couple months ago and are still dealing with it. Ironically, we were in the middle of changing our entire website to be compliant during the stay at home order. They happened to come during our transition. We are a small family owned business struggling like everyone else to get through this time. We had to hire a lawyer, sent a letter to try to dismiss explaining that we are small and can’t afford a lawsuit like this. They didn’t care. It is a shakedown. We researched the law firm suing us and came across this article about them:
What I want to know is how someone in NY could stumble across our Hawaii brand and want to shop our website on the other side of the country. We dug further and he has been suing random websites left and right. All small mom & pop businesses.
To answer your question, we did not shut down our site since it was our only revenue during the retail shutdowns here. Talk about kicking us when we’re down! We had engaged a company to skin our site to be ADA accessible. They were easy to use and completed the fix in about 24-48 hours.
We are just praying that our settlement won’t kill us. Good luck and I really hope this racket stops.
We just found out that we’re being sued in a CLASS ACTION suit in NY for this. We haven’t even been served but have received emails from lawyers wanting to represent us. (It feels like a money grab on both ends). We added the code to be compliant. I would really like any guidance on how to best approach this issue.
Wow - This is unbelievable. This is a shakedown for sure.
I would contact my State senator (yes - there are examples where they get involved on behalf of their residents for various issues). I would also contact my State Attorney General and complain about the shakedown. Also your local TV news station may want to run a story on this.
In the meantime, is there any website or app that will scan a site for compliance?
Hi! I actually eventually just called the plaintiff’s attorney and told
them our story (small brand, family owned and operated, etc etc) and they
agreed to dismiss the case. I really think they’re trying to go after big
guys. But I completely agree, it’s a ■■■■■■■■ shakedown. I agree with
Ed…contact local news, contact your State Attorney General…and maybe
even contact the other brands named in the lawsuit ? and join forces?
there’s power in numbers!
That’s the website that can help you determine current compliance…you
might need the help of a web developer. But I also believe there are lots
of apps out now to help…one might be called accessibiluty enabler? look
around.
and finally, I AM SO SORRY THAT YOU’RE GOING THROUGH THIS! When it happened
to me, that might have been the hardest month of my entire entrepreneurial
journey. All I could think was “are you bleep serious? as if business
isn’t ■■■■■■ enough in the middle of a global pandemic…you wanna SUE ME,
now? Come on Universe! Cut me some slack!”
Almost every user of the SHOPIFY platform would agree that as startups (mom and pop) SHOPIFY is the only dirt cheap way to develop a website. The question is: how effective is Tenably in keeping everyone compliant?
Im on the same boat, I recently updated my theme and working to comply to all regulation standard and this ADA law suit pop out. It is stressful since we are just doing this as a home business. How did you resolve your lawsuit? If you could share. Thanks