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‘Accessibility at the Edge’ W3C CG Is an Overlay Smoke Screen

Adrian Roselli brings attention to the Accessibility at the Edge community group, hosted on W3.org. People would be forgiven for assuming that such groups are supported by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), but Adrian talks us through the process, which requires just five people to show their support for a proposed group in order for it to be created.

This group started off as the “Overlay Community Group”, founded by the Chief Operating Officer at UserWay – an overlay company. Adrian argues that the renaming of the group was an attempt to distance the founders from the original purpose of the group, which would have been quite easy to argue a self-serving interest in.

What follows is seemingly a long history of careful censorship, with difficult questions and critical comments never getting past the ‘approval’ stage on the group, thus never being seen. Adrian worries that the group could now be used to “provide a veneer of credibility”, by “using the W3C brand [in] their own ongoing marketing efforts”.

Definitely food for thought, and something to keep an eye on.

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