Blind Man Sues Playboy Over Its Website

In this case, it's all about the articles
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 29, 2018 11:37 AM CST
Suit Demands Playboy Cater to the Blind
Waitresses pose inside the Playboy Club at the Sands Casino in Macau in 2010.   (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

A new lawsuit claims there's a big problem with Playboy's website: it's not accessible to the blind. The suit, though, isn't about racy photos. Donald Nixon, who is legally blind, filed the class-action suit on Wednesday, arguing Playboy.com and Playboyshop.com aren't compatible with screen-reading software that translates text into braille or recites it using a speech synthesizer, reports TMZ. Nixon's suit claims the visually impaired "cannot fully and equally use or enjoy the facilities, products, and services" offered, putting Playboy in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires businesses to make services accessible to people with physical disabilities.

Nixon hopes to force Playboy to become accessible to the blind but is also seeking unspecified damages. The Kardashians' DASH website was hit with a similar complaint in 2016. A year later, a blind woman sued Kylie Jenner's Kylie Cosmetics, arguing its website wasn't compatible with her screen-reader software. A legally blind man sued some 40 mid-Atlantic schools in federal court in Manhattan last week for the same reason, per the Allentown Morning Call. The paper notes the Justice Department has yet to release guidelines on how to make websites compliant with the ADA, and the delay has left businesses in the lurch. (A novel treatment for blindness doesn't come cheap.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X