Regulatory Compliance & Litigation Risk Management

Compliance Datalytics Beer Wine & Spirits Guide is for any company selling alcohol. If you own a winery/distillery, , whether through online, or physical presence, your business could be impacted. As part of Compliance Datalytics’ ongoing litigation monitoring, we created this guide in response to a recent increase in the Beer, Wine, & Spirits industries being targeted.

This guide includes everything you need to become compliant in your website. The guideline outlines the necessary steps to take to best reach your audience. We also include examples of what to do and what not to do.

In recent years, lawsuits have increased over 177% over 2017! Settlements can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars (not including your own attorney fees)!

Once a company factors in their own attorney’s fees and post-implementation compliance costs, fees can easily be in excess of $100,000!

• The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) generally requires that businesses provide qualified individuals with disabilities equal access to their programs, services, or activities. This now includes electronic media and websites. The ADA and state counterparts like the California Disabled Persons Act and Unruh Civil Rights Act, govern places of public accommodation* or public premises. While the ADA applies to businesses with 15 or more employees, even smaller businesses can benefit from ensuring that their websites are ADA compliant. Doing so not only limits liability but opens your company up to potential new customers who visit your website.

• The ADA was developed in 1990 and is meant to ensure that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as anyone else. This means any businesses that serve the public must make sure their building accommodates people with disabilities of various kinds. You can experience how some of these accessibility tools work by clicking on the Userway.org widget on the lower left corner of this page. (shown on the left here)

• Many companies across the US are familiar with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) based lawsuits related to parking, bathroom access and wheelchair ramps, etc. What is new, beginning in 2016, are ADA Title III, Section 508 lawsuits for disabled persons unable to access content online, specifically on websites for premise-based businesses. But increasingly for pure online businesses too. These lawsuits are expected to exceed 4000 cases in 2019. Average settlements are usually in the tens of thousands but include plaintiff legal fees, court costs and, of course, the business’ defense fees as well. This can increase the total costs to well into six figures

• And now that the internet is so widely used, ADA compliance also applies to websites and even mobile apps. Basically, this means that your website needs to be accessible to people who have disabilities that affect their hearing, vision or physical capacities.

• Compliance Datalytics can provide low cost, fixed fee consulting programs to help get businesses into compliance. Compliance Datalytics has also developed some industry specific Guidebooks that v businesses can use to achieve ADA compliance on their own with our recommended accessibility technology partners. Click here for more information.

• In general, to be seen as ADA Compliant websites must be completely in conformance and cannot achieve conformance if part of a website is excluded.  Further, all the information presented by, and the functionality of, web content technologies (such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) must be supported by accessibility web content technologies.
• Under now generally accepted Guidelines websites must be:
  • Perceivable, which means users must be able to perceive the information being presented;
  • Operable, which means that users must be able to operate the interface;
  • Understandable, which means that users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface;
  • Robust, which means that users must be able to access the content as technologies advance.
• Many courts are recognizing the Web Access Initiative’s (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as the standard used to judge whether a particular site adequately accommodates individuals with disabilities. The four bullets listed above are derived from these standards. There are three levels within each standard, A, AA and AAA with WCAG 2.0 AA level, adopted in 2008, usually being cited. The WAI is a non-profit, Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that operates under the auspices of the World Wide Web Consortium (WC3).
• For more information on the requirements for WCAG 2.0 conformance, see W3C’s WCAG’s Success Criteria, which are designed to allow online content to be tested to determine whether it satisfies the requisite criteria for a conformance level.  Testing should involve a combination of automated testing and human evaluation

• We’ve created a checklist for developing a website that conforms to WCAG and Section 508 standards. These eight items cover the bulk of the WCAG 2.0 AA requirements. The WCAG 2.0 itself has 28 separate categories, and 1100 individual items. Remember the goal is to make your website and Apps useful for potential customers with disabilities, not perfect. 1. Provide Text alternatives for non-text content like videos and podcasts. 2. Make page layout and content adaptable 3. Use color appropriately and avoid color on color text 4. Make text readable and legible 5. Provide keyboard-based navigation and user controls 6. Avoid causing Negative Physical reactions such as seizures by avoiding flashing signs 7. Use page titles for each discreet webpage 8. Make the website easy to navigate. To purchase our Guidebooks click here.