- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Foods Program has posted a new website listing regulations it plans to publish by October 2024 and long-term regulations it is prioritizing for publication at a later date. Additionally, FDA has updated the list of guidance topics it is considering and expects to publish by the end of 2024.
- Regulations are officially announced in the Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions published each spring and fall. Some of the regulations FDA has listed on its website include use of the “healthy” nutrient content claim, the use of ultrafiltered milk in cheese and cheese related products, and front-of-package nutrition labeling, among others.
- The following five topics have been added to the list of guidance documents the FDA expects to publish by the end of December 2024:
- Notifying FDA of a Permanent Discontinuance in the Manufacture or an Interruption of the Manufacture of an Infant Formula; Draft Guidance for Industry;
- Action Levels for Lead in Food Intended for Babies and Young Children: Guidance for Industry;
- The Food Traceability Rule: Questions and Answers; Draft Guidance for Industry;
- Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Human Food; Chapter 12: Preventive Controls for Chemical Hazards: Draft Guidance for Industry; and
- Voluntary Sodium Reduction Goals: Target Mean and Upper Bound Concentrations for Sodium in Commercially Processed, Packaged, and Prepared Foods (Edition 2): Draft Guidance for Industry
- Public comments on the list of guidance topics can be submitted to www.regulations.gov using Docket ID FDA-2022-D-2088.
Tag: website
Practical Tips and Tools for Maintaining ADA-Compliant Websites
Title III of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), enacted in 1990, prohibits discrimination against disabled individuals in “places of public accommodation”—defined broadly to include private entities that offer commercial services to the public. 42 U.S.C. § 12181(7). Under the ADA, disabled individuals are entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, and accommodations offered by a place of public accommodation. Id. § 12182(a). To comply with the law, places of public accommodation must take steps to “ensure that no individual with a disability is excluded, denied services, segregated or otherwise treated differently than other individuals.” Id. § 12182(b)(2)(A)(iii).
In the years immediately following the enactment of the ADA, the majority of lawsuits alleging violations of Title III arose as a result of barriers that prevented disabled individuals from accessing brick-and-mortar businesses (i.e., a lack of wheelchair ramps or accessible parking spaces). However, the use of the Internet to transact business has become virtually ubiquitous since the ADA’s passage almost 30 years ago. As a result, lawsuits under Title III have proliferated in recent years against private businesses whose web sites are inaccessible to individuals with disabilities. Indeed, the plaintiffs’ bar has formed something of a cottage industry in recent years, with numerous firms devoted to issuing pre-litigation demands to a large number of small to mid-sized businesses, alleging that the businesses’ web sites are not ADA-accessible. The primary purpose of this often-effective strategy is to swiftly obtain a large volume of monetary settlements without incurring the costs of initiating litigation.
Yet despite this upsurge in web site accessibility lawsuits—actual and threatened—courts have not yet reached a consensus on whether the ADA even applies to web sites. As discussed above, Title III of the ADA applies to “places of public accommodation.” A public accommodation is a private entity that offers commercial services to the public. 42 U.S.C. § 12181(7). The First, Second, and Seventh Circuit Courts of Appeals have held that web sites can be a “place of public accommodation” without any connection to a brick-and-mortar store.1 However, the Third, Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals have suggested that Title III applies only if there is a “nexus” between the goods or services offered to the public and a brick-and-mortar location.2 In other words, in the latter group of Circuits, a business that operates solely through the Internet and has no customer-facing physical location may be under no obligation to make its web site accessible to users with disabilities.
To make matters even less certain, neither Congress nor the Supreme Court has established a uniform set of standards for maintaining an accessible web site. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has, for years, signaled its intent to publish specific guidance regarding uniform standards for web site accessibility under the ADA. However, to date, the DOJ has not published such guidance and, given the agency’s present priorities, it is unlikely that it will issue such guidance in the near future. Accordingly, courts around the country have been called on to address whether specific web sites provide sufficient access to disabled users. In determining the standards for ADA compliance, several courts have cited to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA (or its predecessor, WCAG 2.0), a series of web accessibility guidelines published by World Wide Web Consortium, a nonprofit organization formed to develop uniform international standards across the Internet. While not law, the WCAG simply contain recommended guidelines for businesses regarding how their web sites can be developed to be accessible to users with disabilities. In the absence of legal requirements, however, businesses lack clarity on what, exactly, is required to comply with the ADA.
Nevertheless, given the proliferation of lawsuits in this area, businesses that sell goods or services through their web sites or have locations across multiple jurisdictions should take concrete steps to audit their web sites and address any existing accessibility barriers.
Several online tools exist which allow users to conduct free, instantaneous audits of any URL, such as those offered at https://tenon.io/ and https://wave.webaim.org/. However, companies should be aware that the reports generated by such tools can be under-inclusive in that they may not address every accessibility benchmark in WCAG 2.1. The reports also can be over-inclusive and identify potential accessibility issues that would not prevent disabled users from fully accessing and using a site. Accordingly, companies seeking to determine their potential exposure under Title III should engage experienced third-party auditors to conduct individualized assessments of their web sites. Effective audits typically involve an individual tester attempting to use assistive technology, such as screen readers, to view and interact with the target site. Businesses also should regularly re-audit their web sites, as web accessibility allegations often arise in connection with web sites which may have been built originally to be ADA-compliant, but have fallen out of compliance due to content additions or updates.
Companies building new web sites, updating existing sites, or creating remediation plans should consider working with web developers familiar and able to comply with the WCAG 2.1 criteria. While no federal court has held that compliance with WCAG 2.1 is mandatory under Title III, several have recognized the guidelines as establishing a sufficient level of accessibility for disabled users.3 Businesses engaging new web developers to design or revamp their sites should ask specific questions regarding the developers’ understanding of and ability to comply with WCAG 2.1 in the site’s development, and should memorialize any agreements regarding specific accessibility benchmarks with the web developer in writing.
1 See Carparts Distrib. Ctr., Inc. v. Auto. Wholesaler’s Ass’n of New England, Inc., 37 F.3d 12, 19 (1st Cir. 1994) (“By including ‘travel service’ among the list of services considered ‘public accommodations,’ Congress clearly contemplated that ‘service establishments’ include providers of services which do not require a person to physically enter an actual physical structure.”); Andrews v. Blick Art Materials, LLC, 268 F. Supp. 3d 381, 393 (E.D.N.Y. 2017); Doe v. Mut. of Omaha Ins. Co., 179 F.3d 557, 559 (7th Cir. 1999).
2 See Peoples v. Discover Fin. Servs., Inc., 387 F. App’x 179, 183 (3d Cir. 2010) (“Our court is among those that have taken the position that the term is limited to physical accommodations”) (citation omitted); Parker v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 121 F.3d 1006, 1010-11 (6th Cir. 1997); Weyer v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., 198 F.3d 1104, 1114 (9th Cir. 2000); Haynes v. Dunkin’ Donuts LLC, 741 F. App’x 752, 754 (11th Cir. 2018) (“It appears that the website is a service that facilitates the use of Dunkin’ Donuts’ shops, which are places of public accommodation.”).
3 See, e.g. Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, 913 F.3d 898, 907 (9th Cir. 2019) (holding that failure to comply with WCAG is not a per se violation of the ADA, but that trial courts “can order compliance with WCAG 2.0 as an equitable remedy if, after discovery, the website and app fail to satisfy the ADA.”).
© 2019 Vedder Price
For more web-related legal issues, see the National Law Review Communications, Media & Internet law page.
Best Practices for Creating Landing Pages That Convert
Landing pages — dedicated web pages that a visitor to your website, blog, social media post or e-newsletter is guided to after clicking on a link — are critical when it comes to converting those visitors into qualified leads.
If you have been directing traffic to the home page of your website, you are missing a big opportunity to capture more leads. Landing pages have been proven to more than double conversion rates when compared with website home pages. This is because they are created specifically for converting leads, featuring specialized content and offers that appeal to a targeted audience.
To make your landing pages pay, you need to know the basics about how to create a highly effective landing page. Here are 10 steps you need to take in developing landing pages for your law firm:
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Have a singular goal. You want your landing page to do just one job for you — get the visitor to download that free report, sign up for a seminar, subscribe to your newsletter, etc. Don’t clutter them up with multiple offers. One page. One job.
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Use a single, relevant visual. Choose an illustration or photo that is relevant to your offer.
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No false endorsements. Don’t create false endorsements for your offer. Avoid cheesy endorsement copy that turns visitors off.
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Use simple design. Keep your design simple with minimal, impactful copy that consists of a headline, subhead and bullet points that make the content easy to scan.
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Quick load. Be sure your landing page loads quickly; you only have a few seconds for it to pop up or your visitor will lose interest and click off.
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Compelling copy. The worse thing you can do is bore your visitor. Your copy needs to be readable, believable and lead the visitor quickly to your ultimate goal.
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Eyes on the prize. Write and design your land page with your singular goal in mind. Do not clutter the content with irrelevant prose.
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Inform and educate. Don’t waste the visitor’s time by not delivering anything of benefit. And don’t ask for too much information — a name and an email address should be sufficient.
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Be truthful. If you have actual testimonials that would be appropriate, use them but be sure you are not making any false promises or guarantees.
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Provide value. Make it clear what the value and benefits of redeeming your offer will provide to your visitor. If they are entrusting you with their information, you need to let them know it is a fair exchange for what you are providing with the offer.
© The Rainmaker Institute, All Rights Reserved
Third Circuit Federal Appeals Court Rules Attorneys Have Right to Publish Praise from Judges
A federal appeals court issued a ruling yesterday that attorneys have a First Amendment right to publish ads that quote judges praising them, a decision that reverses a lower court ruling.
The case involves a New Jersey employment attorney, Andrew Dwyer, who initially published praise from two jurists on his website. The published quotes were excerpts from unpublished (but publicly available) judicial opinions. One of the judges sent Dwyer a letter requesting that his quote be removed from the website. Dwyer refused because he did not believe the quote was misleading or false.
The matter was forwarded to a committee of the New Jersey Bar, resulting in a proposed guideline that barred attorneys from using a quotation from a judge or court opinion regarding the attorney’s abilities or legal services. Dwyer argued that the new guideline was an unconstitutional ban on free speech.
Fast-forward to 2012, when the NJ Supreme Court approved an amended guideline saying that attorneys could use quotes from judges or opinions, but that the full text of the opinion must be used instead of excerpts.
Dwyer filed suit against the NJ Bar committee that developed the guideline before it went into effect and moved for a TRO and preliminary injunction to enjoin enforcement of the guideline. A NJ District Court denied the request. Both parties then filed cross-motions for summary judgment, which the District Court granted to the committee.
Dwyer then appealed and yesterday, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in his favor, calling the guideline “onerous” and saying that it imposed an unconstitutional burden on Dwyer:
“Guideline 3 as applied to Dwyer’s accurate quotes from judicial opinions thus violates his First Amendment right to advertise his commercial services. Requiring Dwyer to reprint in full on his firm’s website the opinions noted above is not reasonably related to preventing consumer deception.”
This decision could have farther-reaching effects in terms of how attorneys use testimonials in their advertising. Will certainly be interesting to watch!
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The One SEO Rule You Need to Know About Alt Tags for Images
Wikipedia says alt attributes (alt tags) are used in HTML documents/Web pages “to specify alternative text (alt text) that is to be rendered when the element to which it is applied cannot be rendered.”
To optimize your website’s content for search, remember one simple rule for image alt tags: An image’s alt attributes should describe the visual. Including keywords in alt tags is a good practice as long as it’s not spammy. Alt attributes used to have a larger SEO impact in Google searches before the company changed its Google Image search design. Traffic has decreased considerably from image search since then.
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The National Law Review is Going Back to the Future. New website coming up soon!
The National Law Review is honoring its roots as one of the country’s first nation-wide legal journals by returning to a more journalistic style. At the same time, we’re adding enhanced features to help our readers more quickly find the nation’s breaking legal news and analysis.
Look for changes over the next few weeks.
Launch date soon!
Can Law Firms Get Business From the Internet?
Yes, but…
Law firms can absolutely get business from the Internet when armed with a strong plan and backed by an appropriate investment.
How Has Internet Marketing for Lawyers Changed?
The Internet is no longer dominated by single industry websites that people simply visit and read. Today, consumers can interact. They can browse a website, look at and comment on a firm’s Social Media pages, view a law firm’s rating and write their own review.
A few years ago, a law firm could set up a website, do some on-page search engine optimization (SEO) work, add a few links and get site rankings and cases. Today, search engines look at a variety of factors to determine if a site has value. Search engines look at content to ensure that it is relevant and has true value. They look at visitor activity. They analyze incoming links for quality and relevance. They look at a law firm’s online presence, including other websites and social signals.
The potential for attracting new clients through the Web is tremendous. While other advertising mediums are shrinking, the Web’s growth continues to be explosive. Law firms that take the right approach and are selective in choosing their vendors are drawing more clients and cases to their firm.
What Should Law Firms Seek in a Web Marketing Vendor?
Law firm SEO vendors who have been watching the Internet as it changes know what it takes to make a practice succeed online. When searching for the right vendor, look for one with proven success and a team of experts.
Successful Internet marketing for lawyers requires more than just a designer with an eye for professional flair. The vendor should customize websites and SEO campaigns. Some of the larger vendors employ great salespeople, but clients are provided with cookie-cutter designs and template SEO processes.
Your marketing provider should be legal specific. The firm should not have to push the vendor through projects to get work accomplished. The vendor should understand and be able to easily navigate the world of legal marketing. The vendor should have licensed attorneys who understand and can navigate the ethics of law firm marketing. Prior to hiring us, one of our clients had been forced to spend more than twelve painful months and significant staff-time to launch his site.
Look for a Web marketing company with sufficient staff to support your campaign. The staff should include professional designers, attorney content managers, programmers, a Social Media team, marketing consultants and strong account managers.
The best vendors are those that endeavor to be a law firm’s partner, not just a vendor. When you find a company that gives your firm the personalized attention it needs, they can be a true asset. This type of vendor will grow with your firm instead of making a sale to you and then going down the street to sell to your competitors. They commit to your firm’s long-term success and return on investment.
What Kind of Return Does Internet Marketing for Law Firms Offer?
If law firms are partnering with the right SEO vendor, there can be huge return on investments for the firm. One of our clients, Ken Hardison, receives a 10 to 1 return on every dollar he invests. Another client recently settled a case the firm acquired from the Internet for close to $10M. Our Motor Vehicle Accident, Social Security, Workers’ Compensation, Family Law and Bankruptcy clients receive several cases from the Web each month.
Today, very few prospective clients go to the Yellow Pages to find a lawyer or law firm; they search on the Internet first. Achieving a successful ROI through online marketing takes time and strategy, but there are solid results available to those to who invest properly. We work hard for our clients to rank high in the search engines and have compelling websites so they will get the call.
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