[Promotion-technology] Fwd: [nfbcs] Response to "The Hands ThatFeed"

[Gary Wunder]

I wonder if Chris will correct his factual errors--the resolution that was
passed and not the one debated and defeated. Also, the allegations about the
NDA are serious and I wonder if he will take Curtis's statements and give
them the same prominence he has to his blog. 

> _____________________________________________ 
> From: 	promotion-technology-bounces at nfbnet.org
> [mailto:promotion-technology-bounces at nfbnet.org]  On Behalf Of David
> Andrews
> Sent:	Saturday, February 25, 2012 8:13 PM
> To:	blindtlk at nfbnet.org
> Subject:	[Promotion-technology] Fwd: [nfbcs] Response to "The Hands
> ThatFeed"
> 
> On Saturday, February 18, 2012, Chris Hofstader posted a blog entitled
> "The Hands That Feed."  This post can be found at
> http://www.hofstader.com/node/10.  For the convenience of the reader, I am
> including the text of Hofstader's blog post at the end of this article.
> 
> I will not try to summarize what Hofstader was trying to say in his blog
> post.  It speaks for itself.  However, I feel that a number of inaccurate
> statements made in his blog post must be addressed in order to set the
> record straight.
> 
> 	Hofstader says, "Last July, the National Federation of the Blind
> (NFB)at its summer convention passed a resolution 'condemning and
> deploring' Apple for the sin of not requiring that everything sold in its
> app store be fully accessible."
> 
> In fact, the National Federation of the Blind, during its 2011 convention,
> passed one and only one resolution regarding Apple.  Resolution 2011-03
> resolved that the National Federation of the Blind "express its
> frustration and deep disappointment with Apple for allowing the release of
> applications that contain icons, buttons, and other controls that cannot
> be identified by the blind user of VoiceOver, thereby rendering them
> nonvisually inaccessible."  It further resolved that the NFB "urge Apple,
> in the strongest possible terms, to work with the National Federation of
> the Blind to create and enforce a set of requirements for accessibility
> that will, at a minimum, compel application developers to label buttons,
> menus, icons, selection lists, checkboxes, and other controls so that
> VoiceOver users can identify and operate them."  Resolutions passed at the
> 2011 NFB convention can be found at
> http://www.nfb.org/images/nfb/documents/word/Resolutions_2011.doc.
> 
> Regarding Resolution 2011-03, many people have asked me why Apple, an
> acknowledged leader in accessibility, was singled out for criticism while
> other companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Adobe (who clearly lag
> behind Apple in terms of built-in accessibility to products and who justly
> deserve criticism) were not included in the resolution.  As one of the
> authors of Resolution 2011-03, I would say that it was not a matter of
> singling out Apple for special criticism.  We have been trying for years
> to get Microsoft and Adobe to mandate accessibility to their products, and
> so far, we have not been as successful as we would like.  It seemed
> reasonable to me to try to get Apple, a relative newcomer to the field, to
> come to the table and work with us to build some minimal accessibility
> into products allowed into the App Store.  While it could be argued that
> terms such as "disappointment" and "frustration" might seem a bit harsh, I
> felt that Apple needed to know how strongly we felt about the need to
> mandate basic accessibility to icons, buttons, and other controls.  Also,
> I reasoned that since Apple already imposed some pretty strong
> requirements on app developers that other companies did not, why not call
> upon Apple to add accessibility to the mix.
> 
> Hofstader says, "Curtis Chong, head of NFB in Computer Science, the
> portion of NFB responsible for computing issues decided to threaten people
> at Apple with a resolution of condemnation if they didn't attend the
> convention. ... It seems that Curtis did this because his feelings were
> hurt or some other completely childish motivation for biting the hand that
> feeds us best."
> 
> For the life of me, I cannot understand how my dealings with Apple could
> be regarded as "threatening."  Last year, as President of the NFB in
> Computer Science, I did ask Apple to speak at our annual meeting, and I
> clearly stated that there should be a minimum set of accessibility
> features which I thought should be required.  When I was informed that
> Apple would not be coming to the NFB convention, I wrote back saying:
> 
> 	"I am more than a little surprised that Apple would not want to
> expand upon the positive interactions that occurred between it and the
> National Federation of the Blind at the Federation's convention last year.
> At that convention, Apple received a $10,000 Jacob Bolotin award and
> garnered good will from convention participants because of its
> participation at the convention.  In short, Apple had a presence at our
> convention, and this was duly noted and very much appreciated by me and
> other Federation leaders."
> 
> I also said:
> 
> 	"We acknowledge the many good things that have been accomplished by
> Apple that have benefitted the blind, but we believe that ongoing dialog
> between Apple and the organized blind must be active and continuous so
> that a meaningful exchange of viewpoints can occur."
> 
> Again, while we may not always agree with the fine folks at Apple, it is
> hard to imagine how the language above can be regarded as "threatening."
> There certainly is no indication that resolutions condemning and deploring
> the company would be considered at the convention if they chose not to
> come.
> 
> 	Regarding a meeting that took place at Microsoft in September of
> 2004, Hofstader says: "I can't recall what angered Curtis that time but he
> took all of the correspondence and lots of other data covered by the NDA
> (nondisclosure agreement which everyone at the meeting did sign) and
> dumped it out onto the Internet."
> 
> Hofstader's memory of events that took place in 2004 are markedly
> different from mine.  I certainly never "dumped it out onto the Internet."
> Yes, I did provide Dr. Maurer, President of the National Federation of the
> Blind, with a written summary of the meeting, and yes, that summary was
> indeed published in the December, 2004 edition of the Braille Monitor.  In
> my letter to Dr. Maurer, I took great pains not to reveal anything that
> was specifically flagged as a nondisclosure item, and I definitely did not
> write the letter out of any sense of anger or irritation with Microsoft.
> I concluded my letter to Dr. Maurer by saying, "Overall I think the
> meeting with Microsoft went as well as could be expected under the
> circumstances. Representatives of some of the product groups heard from
> real live blind consumers and may have received insights that they never
> had before. We, on the other hand, learned something about how
> accessibility is handled at Microsoft-that is, it is still not truly a
> corporate mandate but rather something which various groups must be
> persuaded to incorporate into their product development cycles."  The
> letter as published in the Braille Monitor can be found at
> http://www.nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm04/bm0412/bm041206.htm.
> 
> I know that in this day and age, blog posting is extremely popular and
> often serves as a convenient channel for communication.  Convenient and
> popular as blogs are, I believe it is incumbent on anyone who posts in a
> blog to ensure that the information disseminated is accurate.  I regret
> that in this case, the accuracy quotient was not as high as it could have
> been.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Curtis Chong, President
> National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science
> 
> 
> Original Blog As Posted By Chris Hofstader
> 
> The Hands That Feed.
> Sat, 02/18/2012 - 11:44 - cdh 
> Why do organizations that claim to advocate for people with vision
> impairment choose to take action against companies that do a good job with
> accessibility while giving a free pass to many that do nothing for our
> community?
> 
> Yesterday, I was talking to my friend and Serotek CEO, Mike Calvo. He
> enthusiastically told me about a device that the people at the Disney
> Magic Kingdom theme park in Orlando, Florida gave him to use for his visit
> there on Sunday. According to Mike, a guy who knows a whole lot about
> accessibility, it looked like a little box with headphones. The
> information provided directly into his ears provided a step by step
> narrative of the park and described what he would have seen if he hadn't
> been blind on the rides and during the shows.
> 
> "I'm 44 years old," said Mike, "I've been going to Disney since I was
> three. This was the first time I got to really enjoy it all."
> 
> Last year, the American Federation of the Blind (AFB) gave Disney one of
> its prestigious Access Awards for the excellent accessibility of their
> theme parks. Also, last year, three blind American individuals filed a
> class action lawsuit against Disney for violating the Americans With
> Disabilities Act (ADA) for having certain portions of their web site
> inaccessible to people with vision impairment.
> 
> I tend to support using lawsuits as a tactic to force companies to stop
> discriminating against people with disabilities by presenting an
> inaccessible web site. Web accessibility isn't too hard to do if the
> site's developers just follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
> (WCAG) available at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) web site and
> certainly a company like Disney can afford to do so. At the same time, I
> accept that our community must first warn a company before filing a
> lawsuit and, furthermore, we should offer our services as accessibility
> experts to these companies before we start tossing around litigation. I
> understand that American Counsel of the Blind (ACB) takes the "try
> niceness first" approach to solving web accessibility problems, a tactic
> for which they should be commended.
> 
> Disney, with the excellent accessibility of their theme parks, should also
> make their web sites fully accessible to people with vision and other
> print impairments but, given that they have demonstrated that they are
> willing to provide profoundly greater access to their parks than any other
> such organization (Six Flags, Busch Gardens, Universal, etc.) lends me to
> believe that, if properly made aware of the web issues, they would likely
> take action to remediate their site in a reasonable amount of time. I'd
> add that a company like Disney would also likely hire blind contractors to
> help them test their accessibility as they try to roll it out.
> 
> So, why file a lawsuit against Disney while letting organizations that are
> much worse off of the hook?
> 
> One might assume that the three individuals who filed the suit acted
> impetuously and, as they don't represent any of the advocacy
> organizations, they really do not represent the class of people with
> vision impairment. Unfortunately, this practice of using aggressive legal
> tactics and publicity against companies who do a better job with
> accessibility seems built into the culture of some so-called advocates.
> Even worse, some companies who have web sites with loads of accessibility
> problems get applause from some groups claiming to represent the community
> of people with vision impairment.
> 
> Last July, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB)at its summer
> convention passed a resolution "condemning and deploring" Apple for the
> sin of not requiring that everything sold in its app store be fully
> accessible. While I agree that having such a requirement would be nice,
> Apple has done vastly more than its operating system rivals Google,
> Microsoft and all flavors of GNU/Linux to promote accessibility. Also,
> Google and Microsoft have their own app stores with no requirements for
> accessibility either. 
> 
> Before I launch into the politics that seem to have led to the NFB
> resolution, I will provide a few examples that demonstrate Apple's
> overwhelming lead in providing systems accessible to people with vision
> impairment. Since introducing VoiceOver, the utility people with print
> impairments use to hear the contents of the screen spoken or sent to a
> refreshable braille display, Apple has sold 100 million devices that are
> accessible to this community. Additionally, every product in an Apple
> retail store that has a user interface includes VoiceOver. A blind person
> can go to an Apple store and try out everything they sell except the iPod
> Classic which hasn't had a software revision in a really long time. I can
> use any Macintosh, iPhone, iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle, iPod Touch and more
> sold in the past few years without installing any extra software.
> Meanwhile, I would need to spend nearly $1000 extra to use Windows on a
> "standard" computer if I want to use the most popular screen access
> utility for that platform. Android from Google includes a screen access
> tool called "TalkBack" which is, in my educated opinion, years behind the
> out-of-the-box experience provided by Apple and the costly add-ons
> required by Windows.
> 
> When counting accessible devices, Apple's more than 100 million is more
> than all of the software and hardware sold by the access technology
> industry since its formation more than 30 years ago. People in nations
> ignored by the AT biz now enjoy unparalleled access if they can get a used
> iPhone 3GS which can be had for much less than JAWS, the leading Windows
> screen reader from Freedom Scientific.
> 
> Why then did NFB choose to single out the leader in affordable
> out-of-the-box accessibility while celebrating Google's tremendously
> sub-standard access?
> 
> At the NFB convention in 2010, they gave Apple one of their accessibility
> awards. In 2011, Apple decided that because of its upcoming Lion operating
> system release that they would not attend any of what we in the blindness
> biz call "the summer shows" - including the national NFB convention, the
> ACB convention, Sight Village in UK and various smaller conferences. Apple
> representatives explained to NFB that they needed to focus on the
> accessibility of their new OS release and of numerous smaller initiatives
> they were preparing for autumn 2011. 
> 
> Curtis Chong, head of NFB in Computer Science, the portion of NFB
> responsible for computing issues decided to threaten people at Apple with
> a resolution of condemnation if they didn't attend the convention. Then,
> at the convention, he pushed through a resolution deploring the company
> that has provided an excellent out-of-box experience that is years ahead
> of their competition. It seems that Curtis did this because his feelings
> were hurt or some other completely childish motivation for biting the hand
> that feeds us best.
> 
> How do I know all of the back room wrangling that happened between the
> largest organization that claims to represent blind people and a
> notoriously secretive corporation? Because Curtis, in the most
> unprofessional move of this unfortunate incident, decided to release all
> of the correspondence between himself and our friends at Apple. This data
> dump included the names of individuals at Apple, their personal email
> addresses and mobile phone numbers and, yes, the people in Apple
> accessibility positions received some harassment from the NFB faithful
> but, likely to Curtis' chagrin, comments on blogs that republished the
> correspondence defended Apple as, yes, the community knows which hands to
> avoid biting.
> 
> Though they do not represent me and the members of our community with whom
> I choose to associate, I'd like to apologize to these hard working
> individuals for the behavior of the NFB. Even at times of greatest
> conflict, froth with frustration, actions like those done by Curtis Chong
> are not those that a respectable advocacy organization should undertake.
> Rather, they are reminiscent of the childishness of kids who have
> discovered some small sliver of their own personal ability to influence
> the world and choose to use it for instant gratification in lieu of
> sustainable and systemic progress.
> 
> If this was the first time Curtis and NFB had pulled such a stunt, I could
> forgive it. One might say that Chong's actions might have been an overly
> zealous reaction to his feeling disrespected by a company that received an
> award from his group only a year earlier. Sadly, this wasn't the first
> time he did this.
> 
> A number of years back, Curtis attended an accessibility event on the
> Microsoft campus. Then, my friend Madeline Bryant McIntyre ran the MS
> Access Technology Group (ATG) and everyone in attendance, including me,
> signed a non-disclosure agreement. As we were under NDA, our friends in
> the MS ATG felt they could converse openly with us about their timelines,
> their plans for the future of their accessibility initiatives and secret
> under-the-hood aspects of the then unreleased Windows Vista. I can't
> recall what angered Curtis that time but he took all of the correspondence
> and lots of other data covered by the NDA and dumped it out onto the
> Internet. Microsoft could have taken legal action but can you imagine the
> headline in the Wall Street Journal, "Behemoth Microsoft Sues Blind
> Advocacy Group" so MS couldn't react to Chong's violation of their
> agreement. My friends at MS can no longer trust Curtis and I doubt any NFB
> representative will be invited back to a private session, thus limiting
> NFB's ability to advocate for our community.
> 
> At the time Curtis attacked Microsoft, the Redmond software giant was the
> leader in accessibility, a fact to which I testified in the DOJ's
> antitrust case against MS.. Microsoft's ATG continues to employ some of
> the most talented people in the field and I'm expecting some terrific
> things from them in the upcoming Windows 8. 
> 
> Thus, while trashing Apple and going public with MS information, NFB also
> chose to file ADA based lawsuits against some companies for having web
> sites with lots of accessibility violations. The first such suit was
> against AOL and NFB chose to settle the case for a rumored $5 million
> award without AOL making any improvements in their then miserable
> accessibility.
> 
> The next suit was filed against Amazon whose web site contains many
> accessibility violations. Amazon hired New Hampshire based, Paciello Group
> (TPG) to help it with its defense against NFB. Mike Paciello, head of TPG,
> finds his way onto all sorts of accessibility standards groups and acts
> publicly like an advocate for accessibility for people with all sorts of
> disabilities but also accepts clients with reprehensible records on
> accessibility and, given the history of some of these outcomes, his
> clients don't seem to ever actually take accessibility seriously. I
> contend that he should work for clients who have actual plans of becoming
> accessible rather than adding the name of his highly respected company to
> the bad guys of web accessibility.
> 
> If you are thinking, "Everyone deserves a defense," I must remind you that
> these cases are civil lawsuits and, in the US, only defendants in criminal
> cases have a constitutional right to a defense. This community has seen
> Freedom Scientific, the largest and most wealthy company in the blindness
> business, file all sorts of harassing civil cases against smaller rivals
> who could not afford a defense so had to bow to the big guy's wishes. I
> know this because, while I worked for FS, I participated in this
> harassment and, since leaving the company, I have been on the losing end
> of their harassment. 
> 
> Amazon settled its lawsuit with NFB for an undisclosed sum of cash and,
> now, years later, the Amazon web site is still loaded with bad
> accessibility problems.
> 
> The next NFB suit was against American retail giant, Target. Once again,
> TPG was retained by the defense and, once again, NFB dropped the suit
> after Target gave them an undisclosed amount of money and, not
> surprisingly, Target's web site continues to have major accessibility
> problems.
> 
> After settling its lawsuits, NFB made public statements congratulating
> AOL, Amazon and Target for taking steps to become accessible. As a user, I
> saw only minimal and patronizing attempts at accessibility by the
> defendants in these cases and NFB certainly did not represent the
> community of people with vision impairments actual needs and desires.
> 
> At last years NFB convention, ebay was the lead sponsor. Guess what? The
> ebay web site had, at that time, dozens of accessibility problems . NFB
> took ebay's sponsorship dollars while ignoring their poor accessibility.
> Those of us who would say that any group advocating for our community
> should require accessibility before rewarding a company by splashing its
> name all over their convention like they were a friend of our population.
> 
> In the time since the 2011 NFB convention, ebay has hired an accessibility
> engineer and has, according to a friend of mine, been working with NFB to
> remediate its web accessibility problems. When I tried the ebay site this
> past week, I noticed that it is much more usable by a screen reader user
> than ever in the past. I am happy for ebay's efforts and hope this is a
> new role for NFB, actually getting things done rather than just shaking
> down those who violate web accessibility standards and guidelines.
> 
> While slamming Apple at their annual convention, they celebrated Google
> with lots of presentation slots for their Android system. As I wrote
> above, Android accessibility is poor at best but NFB probably got a fat
> contribution from Google and, as any advocate knows, money talks,
> accessibility walks.
> 
> Why does this community bite the hands that feed us while trying to coddle
> those who treat us as a nuisance at best? I really do not know. I will
> probably join ACB this year as, while they have their problems too, their
> approach to advocacy makes much more sense than NFB. I will continue my
> personal letter writing campaign to developers of web sites with poor
> accessibility and continue to offer them my services as a tester when they
> start making their improvements. I will continue to use mostly Apple
> products and will continue to encourage my accessibility hacker friends at
> Google and MS to try to catch up with Apple.
> 
>  << File: ATT00026.txt >>