We ask all of you to review and sign the Yahoo’s Accessibility Improvement petition asking the company to make an audio alternative to its CAPTCHA available so that the blind and visually impaired will be permitted timely access to the same services as those already granted the sighted. The use of a telephone callback scheme is totally insufficient as it does not grant the same level of instant access as the sighted and Yahoo personnel
do not consistently make contact in a timely manner. It is our ongoing contention that visual only CAPTCHA schemes without at least an accessible audio alternative represent “No Blind People Allowed” signs in much the same way as African-Americans were deliberately denied entry to restaurants and other similar public accomodations in the era of segregation. We ask Yahoo to simply fix their grievous error by promptly adding an audio CAPTCHA to all its properties as soon as possible as part of the company’s ongoing accessibility initiatives.
Advocating full participation through equal accessibility.
While I agree with this petition, it should be said that at least Yahoo!acknowledge emails. The situation may not be perfect but the real blind keep out people are those behind Myspace. I have never even had acknowledgement of emails on this subject from them.
At this stage, we must all insist that web sites have, at a minimum, audio CAPTCHA, with an eye toward doing something better in the future. A completely different process requiring human intervention as just as inaccessible as nothing at all when the humans involved feel free to ignore our requests for assistance. In any case, such insufficient accomodations represent separate-but-unequal segregation in all cases.
Since there are so many Yahoo! users out there, why don’t people begin to collect all of the accessibility challenges with Yahoo! properties and post them for Yahoo! management to read. Perhaps a volunteer wants to set up a simple page for people to jump on their soapbox.